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

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 663K, weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) 1 to 4h(-1), pressure 1.5 to 3MPa and H-2/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=663K, WHSV=1h(-1), P=3MPa and H-2/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.