The continuous demand for olefins has stimulated recent research to develop appropriate technology to produce olefins from alternative resources.

Vegetable oil is one of the most potential sustainable feedstocks to produce fuels and chemicals. The review emphasizes isomerization of fatty acid as an important path for biolubricant production. The role of solid acid catalysts, including zeolites, was highlighted to design better isomerization catalysts. The isomerization is a favored mesoporous site with intermediate Brønsted acid strength, which is also enhanced after metal doping on a porous surface. The hierarchical ferrierite (FER) catalyst showed the best selective isomerization with the 10-membered ring cavities, which can be regenerated easily. FER can be produced using a low-cost organic structure-directing agent. The possibility to design two-dimensional pore zeolites with pore mouth selectivity was also discussed. Moreover, the challenges for biolubricant formulation, with focus on palm oil, were also discussed with a detailed comparison to other vegetable oils. The highest palm oil conversion was achieved over the base catalyst, namely, Sr-doped calcium oxide, with a low catalyst dosage. However, the biolubricant-based palm oil still needs many advancements to achieve industrial standards.

Two main limitations in heavy oil are the recovery and upgrading process, which emphasizes aquathermolysis as an alternative approach to reduce viscosity and increase oil quality simultaneously. In addition to facilitating solubilization of asphaltene, hot water (subcritical and supercritical) injected into the heavy oil reservoir also serves as a hydrogen donor. The main purpose of this article is to review catalytic aquathermolysis of heavy oil over zirconia, which is a robust oxide. Zirconia-based nanocatalysts are promising due to their high oxygen storage capacity, acidity, and stability in sub- and supercritical water. The article also elaborates on various methods to fabricate nanosized zirconia with different shapes and sizes by sol–gel, spray pyrolysis, electrospinning, and hydrothermal techniques.