Hydrogen-free Process to Convert Lipids into Bio-Jet Fuel and Green Diesel over Niobium Phosphate Catalyst in One-Step

Biomass conversion into liquid products of interest for the fuel formulations has been draw remarkable attention to reducing the environmental pollution in the world. Biofuels play an important key to mitigating climate changes from the development of sustainable processes. Drop-in biofuels are oxygen-free biofuels composed by liquid hydrocarbons obtained from renewable sources. In the present work, a screening with different catalysts was performed for soybean oil deoxygenation. The niobium phosphate catalyst (NbOPO4) showed a great performance in the production of drop-in fuels in different conditions of reaction. The hydrocarbon yields are in the range of 76-90% (wt%). The redox and acid properties of NbOPO4 led to the simultaneous formation of biohydrocarbons, such as linear (38%) and branched alkanes (14%), cycloalkanes (1%), olefins (1%) and aromatics (36%) compounds. NbOPO4 exhibits higher selectivity to bio-jet fuel (58%), followed by green diesel (37%) and biogasoline (21%). This sustainable route to produce bio-hydrocarbons brings a process using N-2 gas instead of H-2 gas. This is an innovative, sustainable, efficient, safe and low-cost technology with great potential for industry application.