Home – Home – Jornals – Chemistry for Sustainable Development 2009 number 5

Reaction of the catalytic hydrodeoxygenation of biodiesel - a mixture of methyl esters of fatty acids - is investigated for the purpose of obtaining linear alkanes. Precious metals (Ru, Rh, Pd, Ir, Pt) deposited on the binary oxide system CeO₂-ZrO₂ were used as catalysts. It is shown that these catalysts allow one to carry out efficient deoxygenation of methyl esters of fatty acids under hydrogen pressure 0.5 MPa within a broad temperature range (300-380 ^оC) resulting mainly in heptadecane (С₁₇Н₃₆). However, only in the presence of Rh and Ru catalysts the yield of alkanes is quantitative. The process of obtaining linear alkanes of the С₁₄-С₁₈ series using this method is positioned as a stage of production of high-quality kerosene fuel of plant origin.