Self-regeneration of Monodisperse Hierarchical Porous NiMo/Silica Catalyst Induced by NaHCO₃ for Biofuel Production

The development of hierarchical porous material as support catalysts has increased during the last decade. The present work is focused on preparing monodisperse hierarchical silica-supported NiMo catalyst using NaHCO3 as template. Hierarchical silica (HS) was prepared by varying the ratio TEOS:NaHCO3 of 1:0.1, 1:0.2, and 1:0.3 through sol-gel process. The highest acidity of hierarchical silica was applied as support of Ni and Mo metal. The addition of NaHCO3 in synthesis of silica successfully produced monodisperse hierarchical site throughout the surface of catalyst. The presence of NiMo on hierarchical silica increased the surface area and total acidity of catalyst. The highest surface area and acidity value were obtained by Ni2Mo2/HS3 of 641.84 m(2)/g and 12.05 mmol/g, respectively. In addition, the hydrocracking of waste frying oil (WFO) was conducted at the optimum temperature and catalyst-to-feed ratio with various catalysts. The best performance was achieved by Ni2Mo2/HS3 reached 68.57 wt% consists of gasoline and diesel fractions of 18.64 and 42.88 wt%, respectively. The stability test showed that Ni2Mo2/HS3 has the self-regeneration ability during the examination. [GRAPHICS] .