Aviation fuel production from lipids by a single-step route using hierarchical mesoporous zeolites

Hierarchical mesoporous molecular sieves with tunable zeolitic crystallinity, acidity and porosity were tailored to develop a single-step process for hydroconversion of triglycerides and free fatty acids obtained from algae and Jatropha seeds. Ni-W catalyst supported on acidic zeolitic ZSM-5 support with hierarchical structure and intra-crystalline mesoporosity with composition similar to that for typical hydrocracking catalyst could yield 40–45% C9–C15 hydrocarbons and high isomerization selectivity (isomer/n-alkane, i/n ~ 2–6) from Jatropha oil. While Ni-Mo catalysts on the same support furnished 40–50% kerosene range hydrocarbons with i/n ~ 3–13. For algal oil feed hydroconversion using sulfided Ni-Mo catalyst supported on high surface area semi-crystalline ZSM-5, unexpectedly high yield of jet-fuel range hydrocarbons (77%) with moderately high isomerization selectivity (i/n = 2.5) could be obtained.