Efficient utilization of waste date pits for the synthesis of green diesel and jet fuel fractions

Date pits are considered one of the major agricultural wastes in Oman. The present work involves the synthesis of active catalysts from waste date pits carbon produced by carbonization and impregnation with Pt and Pd metals. Synthesized catalysts Pt/C and Pd/C were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX, BET and XPS. The activity of the catalysts’ performance was evaluated by the hydrodeoxygenation of date pits oil for the production of second-generation biofuels, which includes jet fuel and green diesel fractions. Results indicate that the synthesized catalysts were highly active for the hydrodeoxygenation of date pits oil. Based on the elemental analysis, the degree of deoxygenation (DOD) of product oil was 97.5% and 89.4% for the Pd/C and Pt/C catalysts respectively. The high DOD was also confirmed by product analyses that mainly consist of paraffinic hydrocarbons. Results also showed that between the two catalysts, Pd/C showed a higher activity towards hydrodeoxygenation, a conclusion that was based on the high DOD of the product oil due to hydrocarbons formation. Based on the type of components in the product oil, the maximum fraction of hydrocarbons formed lay within the range of 72.03% and 72.78% green diesel, and 30.39% and 28.25% jet fuel using Pd/C and Pt/C catalysts respectively. It can be concluded that waste date pits can be a promising platform for the production of catalysts and biofuels.