Biofuel production from catalytic cracking of palm oil

Palm oil, a renewable source, has been cracked at atmospheric pressure, a reaction temperature of 450degreesC, and a weight hourly space velocity of 2.5 h(-1) to produce biofuel in a fixed-bed microreactor The reaction was carried out over microporous HZSM-5 zeolite, mesoporous MCM-41, and composite micromesoporous zeolite as catalysts in order to study the influence of catalyst pore size and acidify over biofuel production. The products obtained were gas, organic liquid product, water and coke. The organic liquid product was composed of hydrocarbons corresponding to gasoline, kerosene, and diesel boiling point range. The maximum conversion of palm oil, 99 wt%, and gasoline yield of 48 wt% was obtained with composite micromesoporous zeolite.