Simulation of hydrotreating of vegetable oil in a slurry bubble column reactor for Green Diesel production

The purpose of this research is to obtain a mathematical model of the hydrotreating of vegetable oil in a slurry bubble column reactor to produce green diesel using an NiMo-P/Al₂O₃ catalyst. A steady state two-dimensional axisymmetric model of a slurry bubble column reactor of 2.68 m in diameter and 7.14 m in height was developed. The numerical simulation was performed using the model for the reactor operating at 34.5 bar and 598 K. Triglyceride of 5 wt% in dodecane enters the reactor with a very low velocity so that it resembles a batch operation. Hydrogen of 188 mol hydrogen/triglyceride enters the reactor with a velocity of 0.02 m/s. The simulation results show that the vegetable oil (triglyceride) conversion is 97.73%, the product yield is 83.34 wt% and the product purity is 77.23 wt%.