Catalytic Cracking using Nanoporous AlMCM-41 for the Production of Green Fuel

Abstract

The depletion and environmental degradation of fossil fuels are the main concerns of today's researchers. This has triggered the interest of researchers to find alternative fuels. Any alternative fuel should be sustainable, greener and cost effective. Biofuel derived from non edible oil crops will be an ideal choice as it satisfies the above requirements. Among the various non edible oil crops grown all over the world, jatropha oil has drawn much attention of researchers to produce an alternative fuel free from sulphur and nitrogen. In the present study catalytic cracking technology is used to produce green fuel. Herein we report the synthesis of nano AlMCM-41 along with its characterization by XRD, BET surface area analyzer, inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometer, and also its ability towards cracking of jatropha oil using fixed bed flow reactor at optimized conditions. Among the nanoporous AlMCM-41 with different Si/Al ratios (Si/Al = 25, 50, 75 and 100), AlMCM-41 (Si/Al = 25) has been found to be the best in terms of % conversion of jatropha oil, % yield of bio liquid products (BLP) containing mixtures of hydrocarbons and selectivity towards middle distillates. Using AlMCM-41 (Si/Al = 25) other vegetable oils, such as castor, pongamia, neem, coconut and used restaurant oils, have been cracked and the results are compared and discussed.

Keywords:

• Jatropha oil
• Nanoporous
• Biofuel
• Green gasoline
• Cracking