Synthesis of high stability Mo/SiO₂ catalyst utilizing Parangtritis beach sand for hydrocracking waste palm oil into biofuel

In this work, the optimum condition for hydrocracking waste palm oil (WPO) over Mo/SiO2 catalyst was studied in order to obtain biofuel with high level hydrocarbon. Natural source Parangtritis beach sand was utilized to provide amorphous silica support for preparing Mo/SiO2 hydrocracking catalyst via wet impregnation in five different Mo concentrations: 1.22 wt%, 4.50 wt%, 4.66 wt%, 5.74 wt%, 7.63 wt%, and each is labelled as Mo(A)/SiO2, Mo(B)/SiO2, Mo(C)/SiO2, Mo(D)/SiO2, and Mo(E)/SiO2, respectively. With the use of amorphous SiO2, two MoO3 structures, alpha-MoO3 and h-MoO3, were found in catalysts comprising Mo >= 4 wt% in XRD analysis. This study shows that at 550 degrees C with 1:300 catalyst:feed ratio, Mo(C)/SiO2, which possesses the highest total acidity among the others (1.71 mmol/g), exhibits an excellent hydrocracking performance by producing over 87 wt% liquid conversion containing 94 wt% hydrocarbon compounds. Moreover, the reusability of Mo(C)/SiO2 was found to be effective for 5 hydrocracking runs before it started to show a declining conversion level. Regeneration of Mo(C)/SiO2 was surprisingly able to recover its initial performance by producing 75.78 wt% liquid product containing 90.03 wt% hydrocarbon in the hydrocracking of WPO.