On the production of bio-hydrogenated diesel over hydrotalcite-like supported palladium and ruthenium catalysts

Jatropha oil is a non-edible and promising feedstock for the manufacturing of renewable diesel by the process of catalytic hydrotreatment. The present work focuses on the production of diesel range hydrocarbons over hydrotalcite-like (HTlc) materials promoted with Pd and Ru. Catalytic activities of the materials were investigated in a trickle-bed reactor. The performance of these catalysts was assessed by studying the influence of various operating parameters like temperature, WHSV, pressure and H-2/oil ratio. Our lab-made materials exhibited encouraging performance in terms of jatropha oil conversion and C-15-C-18 hydrocarbon yield. The maximum oil conversion was achieved at optimized reaction conditions, i.e. 91.2% with Pd and 85.6% with Ru catalyst. These results justify the impregnation of noble metals over HTlc-based materials owing to their high activity in hydrogenation. Both Pd/HTIc and Ru/HTlc catalysts remained stable for over 30 h.