Preparation of bio-fuels by catalytic cracking reaction of vegetable oil sludge

Biofuel production from vegetable oil is potentially a good alternative to conventional fossil derived fuels. Moreover, liquid biofuel offers many environmental benefits since it is free from nitrogen and sulfur compounds. Biofuel can be obtained from biomass (e. g. pyrolysis, gasification) and agricultural sources such as vegetable oil, vegetable oil sludge, rubber seed oil, and soybean oil. One of the most promising sources of biofuel is vegetable oil sludge. This waste is a major byproduct of vegetable oil factories. It consists of triglycerides (61%), free fatty acid (37%) and impurities (2%). The hydrocarbon chains of triglycerides and free fatty acid are mainly made up of C-16 (30%) and C-18 (36%) hydrocarbons. The others consist of C-12-C-17 hydrocarbon chains. Transesterification can help in converting vegetable oil sludge into biofuel. The disadvantage of this method is that a large amount of methanol is required. The alternative method for this conversion is catalytic cracking. The objective of this research is to evaluate and compare the pyrolysis process with cracking catalytic reaction of vegetable oil sludge by Micro-activity test MAT 5000 of Zeton-Canada. A ZSM-5/MCM-41 multiporous composite (MC-ZSM-5/MCM-41), was successfully synthesized using silica source extracted from rice husk. The material has the MCM-41 mesoporous structure, and its wall is constructed by ZSM-5 nanozeolite crystals. The porous system of the material includes pores of the following sizes: 5 angstrom (ZSM-5 zeolite), 40 angstrom (MCM-41 mesoporous material), and another porous system whose diameter is in the range of 100-500 angstrom (mesoporous system) formed by the burning of organic compounds that remain in the material during the calcination process. This pore system contributes to an increase in the catalytic performance of synthesized material. The results of vegetable oil sludge cracking reaction show that the product consists of fractions such as dry gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, light cycle oil (LCO), and (heavy cycle oil) HCO, which are similar to those of petroleum cracking process. MC-ZSM-5/MCM-41 catalyst is efficient in the catalytic cracking reaction of vegetable oil sludge as it has higher conversion and selectivity for LPG and gasoline products in comparison to the pyrolysis process. Product distribution (% of oil feed) of cracking reaction over MC-ZSM-5/MCM-41 is coke (3.4), total dry gas (7.0), LPG (31.1), gasoline (42.4), LCO (8.9), HCO (7.2); and that of pyrolysis are coke (19.0), total dry gas (9.3), LPG (16.9), gasoline (28.8), LCO (13.7), and HCO (12.3). These results have indicated a new way to use agricultural waste such as rice husk for the production of promising catalysts and the processing of vegetable oil sludge to obtain biofuel. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.