Engineering Commons^™

Thermo-Catalytic Decarboxylation Of Fatty Acids And Real-World Derivatives Towards Liquid Fuels, Shaun J. Fraser

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The production of green diesel through waste fats and oils is a promising route to producing renewable transportation fuels that are energy dense, have low oxygen content, low nitrogen content, and possess excellent cold flow properties. However, producing green diesel can be expensive, as most methods use expensive noble metals catalysts such as platinum or palladium, use expensive hydrogen gas, and/or use pyrolysis and thermal cracking to reduce hydrocarbon chain length and lose energetic carbon-hydrogen bonds. This thesis studies the continuous thermo-catalytic decarboxylation of fatty acids and their derivatives to create liquid transportation fuels using an inexpensive MoO_x/Al …