Nickel catalyzed reductive decarboxylation to production drop-in biofuels.
fatty acids. decarboxylation. metal catalysts. drop-in biofuels.
Drop-in biofuels emerge as alternatives to petroleum derivatives to reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, contributing to the energy transition to a low carbon economy. These fuels are composed of a mixture of renewable hydrocarbons obtained from the deoxygenation of biomass-derived compounds. Currently, hydrotreatment is the main process applied for this purpose, however, the use of high temperatures and consumption of hydrogen gas is desirable the look for other methods. For this, the present work proposed to develop a new methodology for deoxygenation of fatty acids, under mild conditions, using a nickel complex as catalyst and a low-cost silane as alternative source of hydrogen. Therefore, the fatty acids were converted into redox-active esters and optimization study was carried out, allowed decarboxylation of species at 40°C, without inert atmosphere or specific reactors. The results obtained by GC-FID indicated that method promoted formation of hydrocarbons in range of green diesel and aviation biokerosene with high selectivity and yields 45-67%, under free-hydrogen conditions.