Hydrotreatment of vegetable oil for green diesel over activated carbon supported molybdenum carbide catalyst

Catalysts were prepared and utilized in the hydrotreatment of vegetable oil and FAME to produce diesel-like hydrocarbons. Mo2C/AC catalyst displayed the higher catalytic activity with 100.00% conversion and 21.01% cracking ratio, compared to MoO/Al2O3 (85.64%, 25.79%), MoS2/Al2O3 (83.46%, 11.88%), Mo/Al2O3 (67.99%, 33.19%), NiP/Al2O3 (48.72%, 3.49%), Ni/Al2O3 (18.12%, 0.00%), and MoO/AC (56.05%, 18.55%). The reaction condition was also optimized, and the bio-diesel achieved 100.00% conversion, 9.67% cracking ratio and 0.73 HDO/DC ratio over Mo2C/AC under the optimal condition. The conversion over Mo2C/AC dropped from 100.00% to 87.08% and 71.06% with cycles. The results of XRD, XPS and N2 adsorption-desorption demonstrated that the coke deposited on the surface of catalyst and the formation of MoO2 and MoO3 led to the deactivation. After regeneration, the catalyst recovered and achieved 99.36% conversion.