Development of a cobalt catalyst supported used in soybean oil cracking

Used in cracking soybean oil, catalysis plays an important role in obtaining new forms of renewable energy and cleaner fuels. In this work, was developed a cobalto catalyst supported on aluminum silicate ceramic, with high surface area, thermal and chemical stability. The immobilization of the active material on the support was performed by incipient wetness impregnation and subsequent activation in furnace. The active phase and the support was characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) showed that present cobalt oxide (~99%) refers to CoO, Co₃O₄ and a dopant compounds in defined proportions. The catalytic activity was analyzed by soybean oil cracking in stainless reactor under vacuum,and temperature of 250°C for 4h. The cracking products were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IRS), differential thermal analysis/thermogravimetry (DTA/TG) and gas chromatography (GC). The results became evident that the cracking of oil using the catalyst developed produced compounds of lower molecular weight and low oxygen content, having in its chemical formula carbonyl groups. Comparing the temperature range in which evaporation processes occurred (DTA/TG), with temperature ranges of typical oil fractions noted that these are similar to: kerosene (175-235 deg C), light and heavy fuel oil (235-400 deg C) and lubricant (400-510 deg C). The data obtained indicated that the developed cobalt catalyst is effective in soybean oil cracking occurring at a temperature 100 deg C lower than the usual temperature cracking (350 deg C), in presence or not of catalyst. (author)