Diesel and aviation kerosene with desired aromatics from hydroprocessing of jatropha oil over hydrogenation catalysts supported on hierarchical mesoporous SAPO-11

• Hydroprocessing of plant oil over sulphided catalysts on hierarchical SAPO-11.
• The diesel fraction had desired pour point and high cetane value (>100).
• The kerosene fraction had desirable aromatics (8%).
• The catalysts did not show any observable deactivation with time (∼6 days).

Hydroprocessing of non-edible jatropha oil over sulphided NiMo and NiW catalysts supported on hierarchical mesoporous SAPO-11 was investigated under conditions of 375 − 450 °C, 60–80 bar and 1 h−1 in a fixed-bed reactor. High yield (about 84 wt%) of liquid hydrocarbon products was obtained over all the catalysts, with about 40% diesel and about 40% aviation kerosene, remaining 20% being lighter gasoline range hydrocarbons. Variation of Si content in the support (SAPO-11) did not have very significant impact on the hydroprocessing of jatropha oil. The liquid hydrocarbon products had suitable density and viscosity, and low sulphur content. The catalysts did not show any observable deactivation with time (∼6 days). It is the first report of a single catalyst based process, where the diesel fraction had desired pour point and high cetane value (>100), while the kerosene fraction not only had desired freezing point for Jet A-1 fuel (<–47 °C), but also desirable aromatics (8%) were produced. Aromatics formation indicates that, in addition to deoxygenation, mild cracking and isomerization, unexpected aromatization reaction is also taking place over this catalyst. Aromatization reaction reduces the hydrogen consumption in the process by as much 10%, which is a significant advantage of this process.

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