Study of selective hydrogenation of biodiesel in a DBD plasma reactor

In order to achieve the selective hydrogenation of biodiesel at room temperature and under normal pressure, we researched the upgrading of soybean biodiesel using a dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) reaction system. Using Raney-Ni as the hydrogenation catalyst, the effects of the operating parameters on the hydrogenation depth and the selectivity of biodiesel were systematically analyzed. The results show that the polyunsaturated components in soybean methyl ester were reduced by 57.04%, and that the polyunsaturated components were hydrogenated to monounsaturated components with a selectivity of 77.75%. Based on the gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) test results, we established a kinetic model for biodiesel hydrogenation. A comparison of the calculated and experimental results shows that the hydrogenation of the biodiesel can be described by a quasi first-order reaction model. The calculated reaction rate constants indicate that under DBD plasma reaction conditions, the hydrogenation of biodiesel has high selectivity for the formation of monounsaturated components.