Synthesis and catalytic performance of bimetallic NiMo- and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites for production of liquid biofuels

This work presents a synthesis of bimetallic NiMo and NiW modified ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites and their heterogeneous catalytic conversion of crude palm oil (CPO) to biofuels. The ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites were synthesized through a self-assembly of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant with silica-alumina from ZSM-5 zeolite, prepared from natural kaolin by the hydrothermal technique. Subsequently, the synthesized composites were deposited with bimetallic NiMo and NiW by impregnation method. The obtained catalysts presented a micro-mesoporous structure, confirmed by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX, NH3-TPD, XRF and N2 adsorption-desorption measurements. The results of CPO conversion demonstrate that the catalytic activity of the synthesized catalysts decreases in the series of NiMo-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > Ni-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > Mo-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > W-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > NiMo-ZSM-5 > NiW-ZSM-5 > ZSM-5/MCM-41 > ZSM-5 > MCM-41. It was found that the bimetallic NiMo- and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 catalysts give higher yields of liquid hydrocarbons than other catalysts at a given conversion. Types of hydrocarbon in liquid products, identified by simulated distillation gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (SimDis GC-FID), are gasoline (150-200°C; C5-12), kerosene (250-300°C; C5-20) and diesel (350°C; C7-20). Moreover, the conversion of CPO to biofuel products using the NiMo- and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 catalysts offers no statistically significant difference (P> 0.05) at 95% confidence level, evaluated by SPSS analysis.