(417e) Conversion of An Hydrogenate Lco into An Oxygenate Diesel Fuel

A hydrotreated LCO to ultra-low sulfur was oxidized using air and a CuCr/PVP catalyst to incorporate oxygen in the alkyl-naphtho-aromatics molecules. The hydrotreated product was deeply characterized using three different solvents in a HPLC separation procedure, followed by GC-MS and HNMR analysis of the fractions. Two hydrotreated products were treated in air at different temperatures and space velocities, in a continuous CSTR reactor operating at 1 MPa of total pressure. The oxygenated products were characterized by GC-MS and HNMR techniques to identify the type of compounds formed. In addition their acid number, fuel stability and cetane number were measured using ASTM methods. It was found that the rate of oxygen incorporation follows a kinetic apparent order one respect to hydrocarbon and 0.3 to oxygen. At the beginning of oxygen uptakes, the Cetane number increases proportional to the oxygen content. Then, at high oxygen content in the fuel, the effect of additional oxidation on cetane number is largely reduced and the fuel stability starts to be out of specification. A simplified scheme of reactions is proposed base on previous studies with model molecules. The said oxidation process produces an oxygenate diesel that improves the diesel engine emission (NOx and PM).