Fuel 308 (2022) 121860 Available online 21 September 2021 0016-2361/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Highly active iron-promoted hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS) for deoxygenation of triglycerides to green hydrocarbon-like biofuel Suraya Zulkepli a , Hwei Voon Lee a , Noorsaadah Abd. Rahman b , Ling Tau Chuan c , Pau Loke Show d , Wei-Hsin Chen e, f, g , Joon Ching Juan a, h, * a Nanotechnology & Catalysis Research Centre, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia b Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science Building, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia c Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia d Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia e Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 701, Taiwan f Research Center for Smart Sustainable Circular Economy, Tunghai University, Taichung 407, Taiwan g Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung 411, Taiwan h School of Science, Monash University, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 46150, Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Iron Mesoporous silica Deoxygenation Biofuel Hydrocarbons ABSTRACT The interest in the production of sustainable hydrocarbon-like biofuel is increasing due to the environmental issues such as global warming and uncertainty of crude oil prices. A series of Fe catalysts (5, 10, 40, and 100 wt% Fe) supported on the hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS) were successfully prepared for the production of biofuel via deoxygenation (DO) reaction. In the DO reaction, the diesel range biofuel is produced in the absence of H 2 and solvents. Interestingly, the 40 wt.%Fe/HMS catalyst exhibited the highest conversion and selectivity of 81.4 and 84.8%, respectively toward C 8 -C 20 hydrocarbons-like biofuel at 380 ◦ C for 2 h. This performance is closely related to the well-dispersed Fe in the hematite phase, along with the interaction between Si-OH and Fe-O bonds. The acidity, surface area, and pore size of Fe/HMS have improved the catalytic activity. This result demonstrates that the Fe/HMS catalyst is a potential DO catalyst for the production of renewable hydrocarbon- like biofuel. 1. Introduction The global development of renewable energy has been driven due to the dwindling petroleum reserves, rising crude oil prices, and serious environmental threats (e.g.: global warming, and climate change) [1,2]. Therefore, enormous efforts have been taken to seek alternative renewable energy sources such as biofuels, solar, wind energy, hydrogen, etc. in order to increase the energy security [3,4]. Due to the increasing demand for petroleum fuel in the transportation sector (>70%), it is highly desirable to produce renewable fuels from biomass sources (e.g.: soybean oil, palm oil and Jatropha oil) [5,6]. As a result, biodiesel, also known as fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), is being used to replace petroleum-based biofuel [7,8]. Biofuels are typically composed of either biodiesel or bioethanol, which are derived from vegetable oils, microbial oil, waste oil or animal fats [8,9]. This FAME is commonly produced through the trans- esterifcation process, which employs a homogeneous catalyst and sol- vent [7,10]. Nevertheless, some drawbacks of biodiesel that are associated with high oxygen content are problematic, resulting in flter plugging, weak cold-fow properties, and severe carbon residues in the engine due to incomplete combustion and thickening of lubricating oil [11,12]. To solve these limitations, the development of a cleaner approach to the production of green hydrocarbon-like biofuel is of great importance [3]. Therefore, new biofuel production methods are crucial for reducing non-renewable fuel consumption and ensuring future renewable energy stability [13]. In recent years, much attention has been devoted to the hydro- deoxygenation (HDO) of non-edible oils using solvent and different types of temperature and/or pressure to produce high-value biofuel [14–17]. Therefore, various heterogeneous metal catalysts supported * Corresponding author at: Nanotechnology & Catalysis Research Centre, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. E-mail address: jcjuan@um.edu.my (J.C. Juan). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2021.121860 Received 6 April 2021; Received in revised form 26 July 2021; Accepted 27 August 2021