Catalytic Hydrotreatment of Jatropha Oil over Lanthanum Hydroxide Supported Noble Metals: Effect of Promotion with Cerium

Abstract

Catalytic hydrotreatment of jatropha oil is an attractive option for the production of diesel‐range hydrocarbons. Here, we synthesized and tested the performance of two novel La(OH)3 supported Pd and Ru catalysts promoted with Ce, viz. Pd−Ce/La(OH)3 and Ru−Ce/La(OH)3 (hereafter referred to as Pd−Ce and Ru−Ce). The deoxygenation of jatropha oil was performed in a fixed‐bed reactor. The reaction conditions were varied so: temperature 603 to 663 K, weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) 1 to 4 h−1, pressure 1.5 to 3 MPa and H2/oil ratio 200 to 1000 (v/v). The performance of our lab‐made materials was encouraging. Upon optimization of the hydrotreating process, the best performance of both Pd‐Ce and Ru−Ce was achieved at T=663 K, WHSV=1 h−1, P=3 MPa and H2/oil ratio=600 v/v. Oil conversion at these reaction conditions was 97.3 and 91.8% over Pd−Ce and Ru−Ce. The respective hydrocarbon yield was 81% (for Pd−Ce) and 75.3% (for Ru−Ce). The resilience of the lab‐made catalysts was tested by time‐on‐stream study. Both catalysts were stable for 40 hours of time‐on‐stream. Finally, reaction pathway for deoxygenation of triglycerides over the investigated catalysts was proposed.