A non-sulfided flower-like Ni-PTA catalyst that enhances the hydrotreatment efficiency of plant oil to produce green diesel

Abstract

The development of a novel non-sulfided catalyst with high activity for the hydrotreatment processing of plant oils, is of high interest as a way to improve the efficient production of renewable diesel. To attempt to develop such a catalyst, we first synthesized a high activity flower-like Ni-PTA catalyst used in the hydrotreatment processes of plant oils. The obtained catalyst was characterized with SEM, EDX, HRTEM, BET, XRD, H 2 -TPR, XPS and TGA. A probable formation mechanism of flower-like Ni(OH) 2 is proposed on the basis of a range of contrasting experiments. The results of GC showed that the conversion yield of Jatropha oil was 98.95%, and the selectivity of C11-C18 alkanes was 70.93% at 360 €‰°C, 3 €‰MPa, and 15 €‰h '1. The activity of this flower-like Ni-PTA catalyst was more than 15 times higher than those of the conventional Ni-PTA/Al 2 O 3 catalysts. Additionally, the flower-like Ni-PTA catalyst exhibited good stability during the process of plant oil hydrotreatment.