Renewable Hydrocarbon Fuels from Plant Oils for Diesel and Gasoline

Abstract

The issues of global CO2 emissions and depletion of non-renewable energy resources associated with fossil fuels encourage the use of plant oils (both edible and non-edible) as biofuel sources. This review summarizes the literature on renewable hydrocarbon fuel production, including feedstock choice, oil extraction, and production processes. Plant oils can be upgraded into hydrocarbon biofuels by catalytic cracking or deoxygenation reactions, such as hydrodeoxygenation, decarboxylation and decarbonylation. This review also covers current progress in renewable hydrocarbon fuel blending with fossil diesel or gasoline to meet the requirements of product quality for engine fuel applications.

Selective hydroconversion of coconut oil-derived lauric acid to alcohol and aliphatic alkane over MoOx-modified Ru catalysts under mild conditions

“…Catalytic hydroconversion of higher carbon number aliphatic carboxylic acids (C $ 12) (entries 1-5) resulted higher selectivity towards alkanes than that of lower carbon number (C5-C9) (entries 6-9). Moreover, Ru-(0.026)MoO x /TiO 2 catalyst was also active for hydroconversion of typical biomass-derived dicarboxylic acids (e.g., levulinic acid and succinic acid) produced diols and lactone under mild reaction conditions (entries [10][11].…”

“…5,6 The catalytic hydroconversion of fatty acids can be classied into three reactions: hydrodeoxygenation (HDO), hydrodecarbonylation (HDCO), and hydrodecarboxylation (HDCO 2 ), and a number of comprehensive reviews have been reported in the last decade. [7][8][9][10][11][12] HDCO and HDCO 2 yield hydrocarbons with one carbon atom less than the fatty acid precursor, while HDO gives hydrocarbons with the same chain length as the starting compounds. 13 Among these hydroconversion approaches, HDO, producing hydrocarbons without C-C bond cleavage of fatty acids, is more atom-efficient than the other methods (HDCO and HDCO 2 ) with C-C bond cleavage of the fatty acids.…”