Feasibility Studies for Conventional Refinery Distillation with a (1:1) w/w of a Biocrude Blend with Petroleum Crude Oil Anil Kumar Sarma* and D. Konwer Department of Energy, Tezpur University, Napaam-784028, Assam, India Received December 6, 2004. Revised Manuscript Received March 19, 2005 Biocrude produced by the catalytic cracking of plant seed oil has the potential for use as a substitute of petroleum crude oil. The distillation characteristics of a biocrude blend prepared by mixing 50 wt % of Oil India Limited (OIL) petroleum crude with the biocrude prepared from the methyl esters of Mesua ferrea L. seed oil are reported in this paper. More than 63% of the distillate can be recovered from the blend at atmospheric pressure, compared to 43% for the OIL crude. The recovery of aviation turbine fuel (JP-8), which normally has a boiling range of 175- 250 °C was determined to be much higher: 26% in biocrude and 22% in the blend, compared to 16% for the OIL crude alone. This finding is significant, considering the increased demand for air transportation fuel. Blending shows great economic promise. Using vacuum distillation, the product recovered is ∼89% for the blend, whereas this recovery is only 76% for the OIL crude. The fractions obtained from blend distillation have characteristics that are similar to those of the petroleum crude. However, some additional treatment may need to be undertaken to reduce the stickiness and odor of the blended crude. Introduction The production of liquid biofuels has been gaining popularity recently, because of environmental concerns and diminishing petroleum reserves. These can be made from renewable biological sources, such as vegetable oils and animal fats. It is a well-established fact that the triglycerides derived from the plant seed oil, animal fats, waste cooking oil, etc. can be transformed to cracked oil, which has properties similar to those of petroleum crude oil. 1-8 The substitution of petroleum diesel with methyl esters derived from rapeseed oil is already a commercial activity in many European countries. 1 It is also observed that the biodiesel produced by the trans- esterification of vegetable oil has higher density, viscos- ity and a narrow range of boiling points, thus requiring an additional distillation for end use in many cases. 1 Methyl esters prepared from rapeseed oil can also be used as feedstock for the preparation of liquid hydro- carbons, as reported by Bilaaud et al. 8 Mesua ferrea L. is a timber plant that grows naturally in the northeastern parts of the Himalayan regions of India. The plant flowers normally in the months of March and April every year, and seeds are harvested in the month of September. A normal 15- to 20-year- old tree produces in an average of 30 kg of oil seeds. Currently, these oil seeds can be obtained inexpensively and have no obvious end use. The oil seed contains ∼55-57 wt % nonedible, reddish-brown-colored oil (the shelled kernel contains >75 wt % oil), which had been traditionally used as a fuel. Konwer and co-workers 9-11 reported a method of steam cracking of Mesua ferrea L. oil seeds. In their experiments, the ground seeds (500 g) were mixed thoroughly with anhydrous sodium carbonate (0.5 g) in water (∼50 mL) and the mixture was placed in a vertical cast-iron retort (40 cm × 20 cm inside diameter), which was connected to a receiver flask. The retort was heated to 250-500 °C, at which point decomposition of the seeds occurred, yielding two layers of liquids. The upper layer was black crude-type hydrocarbon mixture, whereas the lower layer was water. The renewable crude oil (i.e., the biocrude) fraction was separated from the water layer and fractional distillation was performed using the true boiling point (TBP) distillation process. They concluded that the fraction distilled between the initial boiling point (IBP) and 140 °C may be a substitute of gasoline, whereas the fractions obtained within the boiling ranges of 140-300 °C and 140-370 °C may be kerosene and diesel equivalents, respectively. Therefore, * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail address: anil_tu@yahoo.co.in. (1) Graboski, M. S.; McCormick, R. L. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 1998, 24, 125-164. (2) Twaiq, F. A.; Mohammad, A. R.; Bhatia, S. Microporous Meso- porous Mater. 2003, 64, 95-107. (3) Reed, T. B.; Graboski, M. S.; Gaur, S. Biomass Bioenergy 1992, 3, 111. (4) Ikwuagwu, O. E.; Ononogbu, I. C.; Njoku, O. U. Ind. Crops Prod. 2000, 2, 57-62. (5) Alcantara, R.; Amores, J.; Canoira, L.; Fidalgo, E.; Franco, M. J.; Navarro, A. 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