Catalytic cracking of soybean oil using ZSM5 zeolite

The influence of using hydrogen or nitrogen as carrier/reagent gas in catalytic cracking of soybean oil was studied. The used catalyst was commercial zeolite ZSM-5 with Si/Al molar ratio of 20. The system consisted of a micro fixed-bed reactor into which crude or refined soybean oil was pumped at 0.07 g/min with gas flow rate of 42 mL/min at 723 K for 45 min. Product distribution was very different depending on using hydrogen or nitrogen as carrier/reagent gas and on the soybean oil. Over ZSM-5, the refined and unrefined oils produced more liquid fuel under H-2 flow than under N-2 flow. The highest amount of gasoline was produced with refined oil under H-2 flow. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.