American Chemical Society, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 22(134), p. 9400-9405
DOI: 10.1021/ja302436q
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A new route to convert crude microalgae oils using ZrO(2)-promoted Ni catalysts into diesel-range alkanes in a cascade reaction is presented. Ni nanoparticles catalyze the selective cleavage of the C-O of fatty acid esters, leading to the hydrogenolysis of triglycerides. Hydrogenation of the resulting fatty acids to aldehydes (rate-determining step) is uniquely catalyzed via two parallel pathways, one via aldehyde formation on metallic Ni and the second via a synergistic action by Ni and ZrO(2) through adsorbing the carboxylic groups at the oxygen vacancies of ZrO(2) to form carboxylates and subsequently abstracting the α-hydrogen atom to produce ketene, which is in turn hydrogenated to aldehydes and decarbonylated on Ni nanoparticles.