Catalytic Cracking Of Palm Oil Into Liquid Fuels: Kinetic Study

The kinetics of the catalytic cracking of palm oil into liquid hydrocarbons are investigated and the catalytic cracking of palm oil was performed in a fixed bed microreactor, operated in the temperature range of 673 – 723 K and palm oil feed weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 1 – 4 h-1

Lysozyme binding to tethered bilayer lipid membranes prepared by rapid solvent exchange and vesicle fusion methods

Tethered bilayer lipid membranes (tBLMs) are important tools for studying protein-lipid interactions. The widely used methodology for the perparation of these membranes is the fusion of phospholipid vesicles from an aqueous medium onto an anchored phospholipid layer. The preparation of phospholipid vesicles is a long and tedious procedure. There is another simple method, rapid solvent exchange, for preparing lipid membranes. However, there is a lack of information on the effects of the preparation method of tBLMs on their interactions with proteins. Therefore, we present in this paper a comparative study on the binding of lysozyme onto tBLMs prepared by the above mentioned methods. The prepared tBLMs have either zwitterionic or anionic characteristics. The results show that lysozyme binding onto the prepared tBLMS is unaffected by the preparation method of the tBLMs, suggesting that the tedious fusion method might be replaced by the simple rapid solvent exchange method without altering the level of protein-lipid interactions

Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic study for palm oil catalytic cracking over Al-MCM-41

Palm oil catalytic cracking over a mesoporous aluminosilicate material (Al-MCM-41) containing 5 % alumina was studied in order to evaluate the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) kinetic parameters. The Al-MCM-41 catalyst was prepared by the sol-gel technique and was characterized by X-ray diffraction and nitrogen adsorption techniques. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area of the catalyst was found to be 1,278 m2g-1. A 400 mL stirred batch autoclave reactor was used for catalytic cracking of 100 g refined palm oil and 1 g catalyst at a reaction temperature ranging from 573 to 673 K. The pressure-time data at different reaction temperatures were analyzed statistically in order to minimize experimental errors in the recorded pressures, whereas the statistically predicted pressure data were used to calculate the kinetic parameters. It was found that the fitting quality of the statistical model data using the LH model is similar to that of the raw experimental data. However, the values of the predicted parameters are significantly different. The estimated activation energy from LH kinetics was found to be 87 and 112 kJ mol-1 calculated from statistical model data and raw experimental data, respectively. The predicted parameters obtained from statistical model data are found to be more accurate as the influence of experimental error is minimized prior to data analysis