Conversion of Vegetable Oils into Hydrocarbons over CoMo/MCM-41 Catalysts

Deoxygenation of triglycerides over Co and Mo sulfides supported on a series of mesoporous molecular sieves (MCM-41) with varying Si/Al ratio has been investigated in this contribution. The catalysts were tested in a flow reactor at reaction temperatures 300 and 320 A degrees C, hydrogen pressures 2-11 MPa and space velocities 1-4 h(-1) using refined rapeseed oil as a feedstock. Incorporation of Al into the framework of MCM-41 led to an increase of both conversion of triglycerides and selectivity to hydrocarbons, namely n-heptadecane and n-octadecane. However, the conversion of triglycerides was lower than that achieved over alumina supported CoMo. Moreover, the rather high selectivity to oxygenated products, as compared with alumina supports, has made possible a detailed description of the reaction intermediates and their dependence on the reaction conditions.