Abstract
The importance of bio-paraffins produced from waste is increasing nowadays. Bio-paraffins obtained from renewable sources can be used in cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, food industry, petrochemicals, lubricants and fuels. The aim of our research was the investigation of catalytic hydrogenation of pre-treated waste lard over different catalysts, such as, sulphided/non-sulphided CoMo/Al2O3 and NiMoP/Al2O3 to valuable bio-paraffin products. The effect of catalyst properties, process parameters – temperature: 300 – 360 °C, pressure: 4 MPa, liquid hourly space velocity: 1.0 – 3.0 h-1, hydrogen/feedstock volume ratio: 550 Nm3/m3 – on the yield and quality of the paraffin mixture was investigated. The catalytic hydrogenation experiments were carried out in a high-pressure reactor system, which contained a tubular down flow reactor with 100 cm3 effective volume. Based on the results, it was concluded that every catalyst is suitable for the production of bioparaffins from waste lard. Yield of main products changed in function of catalyst compositions at favourable process parameters (temperature: 345 °C, liquid hourly space velocity: 1.0 h-1): sulphided NiMoP/Al2O3 (75.1 %) > sulphided CoMo/Al2O3 (71.1 %) > non-sulphided NiMoP/Al2O3 (69.2 %) > non-sulphided CoMo/Al2O3 (67.0 %). Paraffin mixtures with relatively high isoparaffin content (8.9 %) were obtained over non-sulphided CoMo/Al2O3.
