Microalgal biomass is one of the most promising renewable resources. Squalene (2,6,10,15,19,23-hexamethyltetracosa-2,6,10,14,18,22-hexaen) is purely and efficiently produced by Aurantiochytrium sp. 18W-13a. Refining squalene with the conventional process gives a number of products. In this study, we developed new catalyst systems that can dissociate C-C bonds in squalane, which can be produced from squalene by hydrogenation.Ru/C showed the highest activity for hydrogenolysis of squalane in noble-metal catalysts(Table 1). The kinds of products were much fewer over Ru/C(Figure 1(b)) than those over Pt/H-USY(Figure 1(a)). The main component of products over Ru/C was iso-paraffin, and no olefin, naphthene and aromatic was observed. All of iso-paraffin obtained by using Ru/C were substructures of squalane. Only C-C cleavage reaction proceeded over Ru/C catalyst. Sterically more accessible C-C bonds were preferably cleaved over Ru/C, leading to the characteristic distribution which was different from Pt/H-USY.

Hydrogeonolysis of squalane over novel metal catalysts

248th National Meeting (2014)

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