Catalytic deoxygenation of castor oil over Pd/C for the production of cost effective biofuel

E. Meller, U. Green, Z. Aizenshtat*, Y. Sasson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

66 Scopus citations

Abstract

Pd/C catalyzed deoxygenation of castor oil fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), composed primarily from methyl ricinoleate, has been explored and optimized. Castor oil is a promising low cost feed stock for production of fuels. Under mild hydrogen pressure in the presence of hexane at supercritical conditions the main product was identified as heptadecane (a major diesel fuel component) using GC, GC-MS and FT-IR. Heptadecane formation proceeds not only by deoxygenation via decarbonylation, but also by hydrogenation of the double bond and the hydroxyl group of methyl ricinoleate. Based on intermediates identified in the reaction mixture, a plausible molecular mechanism for the catalytic deoxygenation process was proposed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)89-95
Number of pages7
JournalFuel
Volume133
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2014

Keywords

  • Biofuel
  • Castor oil
  • Deoxygenation
  • Fatty acid methyl esters
  • Supercritical

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