Application of modified microwave polyol process method on NiMo/C nanoparticle catalyst preparation for hydrogenated biodiesel production

The development of renewable feedstock-based diesel fuel is start to come up as the solution of national energy problem. However, the thermal and oxidative stability of biodiesel is not good enough. As a result, biodiesel can only be added to commercial diesel fuel as a mixture with concentration under 20%. To get better thermal and oxidation stability, partial hydrogenation process is applied to biodiesel caused the increase of monounsaturated FAME structure. Activated carbon supported NiMo nanocrystal catalyst was used in partial hydrogenation reaction to get high activity, conversion, and selectivity. In this research, NiMo/C catalyst was prepared by modified microwave polyol process method, which is provided a rapid heating and cooling process. This method can produce nano-sized NiMo/C catalyst with short time and low energy consumption. NiMo/C catalyst produced in this research has 285.85 m²/gram surface area and 77.79 nm crystal size, resulting 20.41% conversion and 8.87% selectivity of biodiesel product. Further research should be conducted to obtain optimum condition.