Production of bio-hydrogenated kerosene by catalytic hydrocracking from refined bleached deodorised palm/ palm kernel oils

In this work, refined bleached deodorised palm oil (RPO) and palm kernel oil (PKO) obtained from palm oil refinery, were used as feedstocks to investigate the production of bio-hydrogenated kerosene (BHK) via hydrocracking reaction. A statistical tool of box-behnken design (BBD) was applied to consider the effects of reaction temperature, pressure and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) on biofuel production from RPO. The results revealed that the temperature was strongly significant effect on the yield and the optimal condition was found at 477 degrees C, 5.6 MPa and 1.5 h(-1) of LHSV. Subsequently, crude biofuel was separated by fractional distillation, the biofuel yield was obtained at approximately 90% and providing 49.59% kerosene selectivity. Curiously, another feedstock of PKO which has lauric acid as the main composition whereas RPO contained palmitic and oleic acids, was used to produce BHK by using operating condition based-on RPO optimal condition. The biofuel yield derived from PKO reached at the same quantity. On the other hand, kerosene selectivity obtained was higher than in case of RPO (55.35%). However, high oxygen content was found in PKO-derived BHK, and this affected to freezing point and total acid number. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.