Deoxygenation of waste cooking to renewable diesel over walnut shell-derived nanorode activated carbon supported CaO-La2O3 catalyst

Waste cooking oil (WCO) is a potential non-edible feedstock that is sustainable for production of automotive green diesel. The present study focused on synthesis of WCO-derived green diesel through catalytic deoxygenation (DO) process using bimetallic acid-base CaO-La2O3/AC nanosized catalyst under zero hydrogen environment. Results indicated that the prepared nano-catalyst rendered high deoxygenation reactivity with 72% yield of straight chain hydrocarbons (C8-C20). The CaO-La2O3/AC catalysed reaction pathway favour in decarboxylation/decarbonylation route instead of cracking effect, which consistently formed major n-C15 fractions at approximately >80%. In addition, CaO-La2O3/AC showed high catalytic stability and reusability up to 6 cycles with >73% of yield and selectivity to n-C15 of >82%. The catalyst showed an excellent coke inhibitor with less than 2 wt% of coke under TGA analysis.