Yuwadee Plaola. Continuous green diesel production via hydrotreating under synthesis gas atmosphere. Master's Degree(Chemical Engineering). มหาวิทยาลัยศิลปากร. สำนักหอสมุดกลาง. : Silpakorn University, 2020.
Continuous green diesel production via hydrotreating under synthesis gas atmosphere
Abstract:
In this research work, deoxygenation of palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD), an inedible by-product from the palm oil refining process, was investigated over sulfided NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst under synthesis gas as a cheaper alternative to pure hydrogen for lower-cost green diesel production. The experiments were performed in a continuous fixed-bed reactor at 330 °C, operating pressure of 30-50 bar, liquid hourly space velocity = 1 h−1, and gas/feedstock ratio = 250-1000 v/v. Although complete PFAD conversion can be obtained under most studied operating conditions, the higher operating pressure and gas/feed ratio lead to higher diesel yield on both hydrogen and synthesis gas. Under operating pressure of 50 bar with gas/feed ratio of 500 (v/v), synthesis gas offers stable diesel yield approximately 80% during time on stream of 42 h which is not different from using pure hydrogen. For the reaction pathway, as expected, hydrodeoxygenation was found as a dominant reaction pathway for sulfided NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst which the main components were n-C16 and n-C18 that have the same carbon atom (Cn) corresponding to PFAD feedstock. Interestingly, operating under pure synthesis gas promotes higher Cn/Cn-1 than that of pure hydrogen because the carbon monoxide in the synthesis gas acts as a reducing agent to produce Cn. Moreover, this research compared edible oil such as palm oil but the result not different. To emphasize the role of carbon monoxide, the deoxygenation reaction was performed under pure carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide not only increased Cn/Cn-1 ratio but also pronounced isomerization and unsaturated hydrocarbon (alkene) formation. However, when operating under pure carbon monoxide, the PFAD conversion of only 85% can be obtained and dramatically dropped to 50% within 24 h. This could be mainly due to carbon formation. As indicated by thermogravimetric analysis of spent catalysts, carbon formation by operating under pure carbon monoxide is much higher than operating under synthesis gas and pure hydrogen. According to a success of using synthesis gas instead of pure hydrogen with sulfided NiMo/γ-Al2O3 catalyst, preliminary test on other catalysts including reduced NiMo/γ-Al2O3 (as non-sulfided catalyst) and NiCu/HZSM-5 (as cracking catalyst) were performed. The results showed acceptable stability of these catalysts under synthesis gas for at least 42 h of time on stream.