Performance of rhenium catalysts supported on different supports (alumina, niobia, and titania) in palm fatty esters to fatty alcohols

The research consists of the conversion through hydrogenolysis of palm esters to fatty alcohols. The reactions were carried out in a batch system, evaluating the variation and effects of the factors temperature (250ºC and 280ºC) and pressure (40 bar and 70 bar). The hydrogenation results show that the catalyst supported on Nb2O5 obtained better catalytic performance than the catalysts supported on TiO2 and Al2O3. The best yield obtained with the catalyst Re/Nb2O5 was approximately 87.3% of conversion of esters and 76.24% of selectivity in fatty alcohols, at a temperature of 280ºC, 70bar pressure, and 10 hrs of reaction. The performance obtained using Re/Nb2O5 catalyst may have been because this catalyst presents a better metallic dispersion of rhenium on the niobia surface and because this same catalyst presents a more significant amount of Bronsted acid sites than the other catalysts (Re/Al2O3 and Re/TiO2). So the characterization of these catalysts is described in our previous article (Muchave et al., 2020).