Bio-Paraffin Mixture Production from Waste Fatty Acid Mixture

Abstract

As the result of the European Union (EU) directives, the amount of alternative components used in fuels is continuously growing in Europe. One of the most common used biofuel is biodiesel which is produced by base- or acid-catalysed transesterification of triglycerides with an alcohol (usually methanol). Biodiesel has lot of drawbacks such as low thermal and oxidation stability, unfavourable cold flow properties, lower energy content, etc. Due its disadvantages the EU diesel standard (EN 590:2013) limits its blending rate to 7 V/V %. Fatty acids are derived from renewable sources; bio-paraffins in gas oil boiling range can be produced from them by catalytic oxygen removal reactions. The obtained bio-paraffins can be promising alternative fuel blending components or valuable petrochemical feedstock. Thus during our experimental work we demonstrated the bio-paraffin purpose hydrotreating of waste fatty acid mixture from vegetable oil processingon sulphided NiMo/Al₂O₃-P catalyst. The effects of process parameters (temperature: 300 – 345 °C, pressure: 40 bar, liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV): 0.75 – 3.0 h^-1, H₂/feedstock ratio: 450 – 600 Nm³/m³) on the quality and quantity of the main products were investigated. Based on the results we have determined thefavourable process parameters for the production of bio-paraffins. The theoretical yields were approximated over 90%. Utilization ideas were proposed for the produced bio-paraffin mixture.