(626f) A New Energy Densification Approach to Convert Lipids to Hydrocarbons

We present a thermo chemical process to convert lipids to renewable diesel fuel. Several thermo-chemical processes, such as hydrodeoxygenation (HDO), have been previously proposed for energy densification of fuels from bio feedstocks. However, HDO is an energy intensive process and it requires high pressure hydrogen stream. The use of hydrogen gas in the conversion process has two major drawbacks 1) typical hydrogen production processes are based on fossil fuel and hence are non-renewable 2) significant safety issues related to storage and transportation of hydrogen gas. We present a decarboxylation based approach that does not require the use of gaseous hydrogen and hence is more sustainable, safe and cheap as compared to the current-state of the art thermo-chemical-catalytic processes. We show that this process produces hydrocarbons which can be further refined to produce renewable diesel fuel. A comparative life-cycle assessment of renewable diesel produced from a commercial renewable diesel process and our proposed approach will also be presented.