Alkane Production from Unsaturated Fatty Acids over Transition Metal‐Doped Pd Catalysts

Alkane production from fatty acids and their derivatives can be considered one of the most-studied processes. Such reactions as hydrogenation, hydrodeoxygenation, decarboxylation, and decarbonylation are the main routes for this process. The reaction pathway depends on the nature of the catalyst, the presence of hydrogen, and the hydrogen source. In this work, a mixture of unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and linoleic acids) was converted to alkanes (mainly heptadecane) in a hydrogen-free atmosphere by using 2-propanol as hydrogen donor. Transition metal doped Pd catalysts embedded on a porous organic support (hypercrosslinked polystyrene) were used as catalysts. A Pd-Cu catalyst showed the highest effectiveness, allowing up to 99.9 mol % selectivity to heptadecane to be obtained. The process proceeds through fatty acid esterification, further hydrogenation of double bonds, and decarboxylation to form n-heptadecane as main product.