Co-hydrotreating light cycle oil-canola oil blends

Abstract

Canola oil and light cycle oil (LCO) blends were co-hydrotreated over a commercial hydrotreating catalyst (NiMo/Al₂O₃) to produce diesel fuel with a green diesel component. High hydrodeoxygenation, hydrodesulphurization and hydrodenitrogenation catalytic activities were achieved for all three feedstocks tested in the temperature range of 350–380 °C with a hydrogen pressure of 7 MPa and a gas/oil ratio of 800 nL/L. The hydrocracking conversion of the 360 °C+ materials in the feedstocks increased by 5% and 15% when 5 and 7.5 wt-% canola oil was added to the LCO, respectively. Compared to the pure LCO, the cetane index of the diesel product formed from hydrotreating the two canola oil-LCO blends increased by 2.5 and 4, respectively. Due to the higher hydrogen requirement to crack and deoxygenate the triglycerides contained in the canola oil, a higher hydrogen consumption was needed to hydrotreat the canola oil-LCO blends.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

hydrotreating / co-hydrotreating / co-processing / canola oil / light cycle oil (LCO)

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Acknowledgement

Partial funding for this study was provided by Natural Resources Canada and the government of Canada’s interdepartmental Program of Energy Research and Development (PERD). Suggestions from Dr. Edward Little and Dr. Anton Alvarez-Majmutov on revising the manuscript are greatly appreciated. The authors are grateful to the CanmetENERGY pilot plant staff for conducting the experiments and to the analytical lab staff for performing the analyses.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg