Hydroprocessing of crude palm oil at pilot plant scale

High cetane index renewable diesel can be obtained by hydroprocessing of palm oil using conventional hydrotreating catalyst (NiMo/γAl2O3). At 40–90 bar hydrogen pressure crude palm oil (CPO) can be deeply converted into paraffins in the diesel range. However, at lower pressures hydrodeoxygenation cannot be fully reached and the appearance of intermediates as C16–C18 alcohols, C16–C18 acids and esters were preliminary identified in the reaction product. Times of stream (TOS) experiments have shown that conventional hydrotreating catalyst suffers of slight deactivation as the reaction proceeds.