The Catalyst Selectivity to Cracking Product of Palm Oil

Abstract

It is important to develop a renewable source of energy to overcome a limited source fossil energy. Palm oil is a potential alternative and environmental friendly energy resource in Indonesia due to high production capacity of this vegetable oil. The research studied effect of catalyst to selectivity of biofuel product from cracking of palm oil. The catalyst consists of silica alumina and synthesized HZSM-5 catalyst, with or without support. The research was conducted in two steps, namely catalyst synthesized and catalytic cracking process. HZSM-5 was synthesized using Plank methods. The analysis of the synthesized catalysts use AAS (Atomis Absorption Spectroscopy), BET (Brunaueur Emmet Teller). The cracking was carried out in a fixed bed microreactor with diameter of 1 cm and length of 16 cm which was filled with 0,6 gram catalyst. Composition of product if using HZSM-5 catalyst are gasoline of 28,87%; kerosene of 16,70% and diesel of 12,20%. Using silica alumina catalyst give product distribution such as diesel of 32,05% and gasoline of 2,78%.