Hydrotreatment of Vegetable Oils for Biodiesel Production

Researchers from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan) and Instituto Politenico Nacional (Mexico) developed an alternative way of producing biodiesel from vegetable oil through the use of a method called hydrotreatment. In this process, hydrogen gas is used for the simultaneous hydrogenation of the C=C bonds in the vegetable oil and deoxygenation of the free fatty acids and triglycerides. This process, under the presence of the Ni-Mo/SiO₂-Al₂O₃ catalyst, leads to the production of biodiesel and to a lesser extent, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

In their study, the researchers determined the feasibility of using the hydrotreatment process to produce biodiesel from three vegetable oils: (1) jatropha oil, (2) palm oil, and (3) canola oil. From their experiments, they found that hydrotreatment is feasible for the production of biodiesel. Among the three vegetable oils, the jatropha oil produced the highest biodiesel yield of 83.5% (wt.) with a corresponding 4.9% LPG yield. It was followed by palm oil with a biodiesel yield of 82.1% and LPG yield of 5.4% and finally, canola oil with 81.4% biodiesel yield and 5.7% LPG yield. The full paper is published in the journal, Energy Fuels (URL above).