Synthesis and catalytic performance of bimetallic NiMo-and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites for production of liquid biofuels

This work presents a synthesis of bimetallic NiMo and NiW modified ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites and their heterogeneous catalytic conversion of crude palm oil( CPO) to biofuels. The ZSM-5/MCM-41 composites were synthesized through a self-assembly of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide( CTAB) surfactant with silica-alumina from ZSM-5 zeolite,prepared from natural kaolin by the hydrothermal technique. Subsequently,the synthesized composites were deposited with bimetallic NiMo and NiW by impregnation method. The obtained catalysts presented a micro-mesoporous structure,confirmed by XRD,SEM,TEM,EDX,NH3-TPD,XRF and N2 adsorption-desorption measurements. The results of CPO conversion demonstrate that the catalytic activity of the synthesized catalysts decreases in the series of NiMo-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > Ni-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > Mo-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > W-ZSM-5/MCM-41 > NiMo-ZSM-5 > NiW-ZSM-5 > ZSM-5/MCM-41 > ZSM-5 > MCM-41. It was found that the bimetallic NiMo-and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 catalysts give higher yields of liquid hydrocarbons than other catalysts at a given conversion. Types of hydrocarbon in liquid products,identified by simulated distillation gas chromatography-flame ionization detector( SimDis GC-FID),are gasoline( 150-200 ℃; C5-12),kerosene( 250-300 ℃; C5-20) and diesel( 350 ℃; C7-20).Moreover,the conversion of CPO to biofuel products using the NiMo-and NiW-ZSM-5/MCM-41 catalysts offers no statistically significant difference( P> 0.05) at 95% confidence level,evaluated by SPSS analysis.