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In this work, two kinds of catalyst called monometallic Palladium (Pd) and a bimetallic of Pd-Iron (Fe) were synthesised using aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) as the supported material via the wet impregnate method. A monometallic catalyst (0.5% Pd/Al 2 O 3 ) named Pd cat was used as control. For the bimetallic catalyst, ratios of Pd to Fe were varied, and included 0.38% Pd-0.12% Fe (PF1), 0.25% Pd-0.25% Fe (PF2), and 0.12% Pd-0.38% Fe (PF3). The catalysts were characterised to investigate physical properties such as the surface area, pore size, porosity, and pore size distribution including their composition by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Subsequently, all catalysts were applied for biofuels production in terms of green diesel/kerosene/gasoline from palm oil via a hydrocracking reaction. The results showed that the loading of Fe to Pd/Al 2 O 3 could improve the active surface area, porosity, and pore diameter. Considering the catalytic efficiency for the hydrocracking reaction, the highest crude biofuel yield (94.00%) was obtained in the presence of PF3 catalyst, while Pd cat provided the highest refined biofuel yield (86.00%). The largest proportion of biofuel production was green diesel (50.00-62.02%) followed by green kerosene (31.71-43.02%) and green gasoline (6.10-8.11%), respectively. It was clearly shown that the Pd-Fe bimetallic and Pd monometallic catalysts showed potential for use as chemical catalysts in hydrocracking reactions for biofuel production.

A new application of biocomposite hydrogels named gelatin-alginate (GA) and pectin alginate (PA) enables the use of the hydrogels as carriers for lipase entrapment during biodiesel production. Waste frying acid oil (WFAO), a raw material, was converted to biodiesel via an esterification reaction catalysed by two different immobilised biocatalysts: gelatin-alginate lipase (GAL) and pectin-alginate lipase (PAL). The highest immobilisation yield of GAL and PAL beads was achieved at 97.61% and 98.30%, respectively. Both of them gave biodiesel yields in the range of 75–78.33%. Furthermore, capability and reusability of biocatalysts were improved such that they could be reused up to 7 cycles. Moreover, the predicted biodiesel properties met the European biodiesel standard (EN14214). Interestingly, entrapped lipase on composite hydrogels can be used as an alternative catalyst choice for replacing the chemical catalyst during the biodiesel production.

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In this work, the effect of catalysts, temperatures and different types of vegetable oil on the production of synthetic bio-fuel via a hydro-processing process called as a hydro-cracking reaction by high pressure pack bed reactor is investigated. Firstly, H2gas (95% purity) was fed into the reactor together with palm oil under two different catalysts (Pd/Al2O3and Pt/Al2O3) separately packed in the reactor. The effect of different temperatures (500°C and 530°C) was investigated and the pressure was applied and maintained at 5 MPa for both temperatures. The results revealed that, when the Pd/Al2O3catalyst was used the highest bio-fuel (approximately 90% at 500°C) after distillation can be produced. Then, palm oil and soybean oil were used to compare in the efficiency of kerosene fuel production. The reaction was operated at 500°C, 5 MPa under H2pressure on the presence of 0.5% Pd/Al2O3. The bio-fuel achieved the highest yields at about 88% and 69% in cases of palm oil and soybean oil. It was also classified as kerosene yield approximately 70% when palm oil was used as a feed stock and at about 55% for soybean oil. Some properties of the kerosene product were characterised. The viscosities were obtained at 1.75 and 1.84 mm2/s and provided 43.06 and 45.85 MJ/kg of heating combustion values when palm oil and soybean oil were used. In addition, the carbon distribution of the synthetic kerosene produced from palm oil was clearly shown to be in the range of C11-C13which is similar to kerosene fuel obtained from petroleum.

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In this work, hydro-processing was used as an alternative route for producing bio-hydrogenated kerosene (BHK) from refined bleached deodorized palm oil (RPO) in the presence of a 0.5 wt% Pd/Al2O3 catalyst. The Box-Behnken Design was used to determine the effects of reaction temperature, H2 pressure, and reaction time in terms of liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) on BHK production. The kerosene selectivity was used as the response for staticial interpretation. The results show that both temperature and LHSV produced significant effects, whereas H2 pressure did not. The optimal conditions were found to be 483 °C, 5.0 MPa, and 1.4 h−1 LHSV; these conditions provided approximately 57.30% kerosene selectivity and a 47.46% yield. The BHK product had a good heating value and flash point. However, the mass percentage of carbon and hydrogen was 99.1%, which is just below the minimum standard (99.5%), according to the carbon loss by the reaction pathway to form as CO and CO2. Water can be produced from the reaction induced by oxygen removal, which results in a high freezing point.

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