Renewable Diesel Production from Palm Fatty Acids Distillate (PFAD) via Deoxygenation Reactions
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Recently, interest in developing biofuels has been growing worldwide owing to the menace of the contraction of oil reserves. Catalytic deoxygenation of fatty acids is a promising route to produce diesel-like hydrocarbons. Based on this, the data presented in the article is relevant and it can be published in Catalysts after answering the following points:
1. it is not clear how the catalyst was separated from solid waste of reaction deoxygenation of palm fatty acids. Therefore, a schematic diagram for the of palm fatty acids deoxygenation process should be given;
2. Physicochemical properties (surface area, pore volume, pore size, crystallite size, etc.) of fresh zeolite and Ni, Co supported zeolite should be given in the table;
3. What is the efficiency of the catalyst during long-term use? What's with the catalyst? It is necessary to investigate the characteristics of the catalyst after use in several cycles.
Author Response
Please see the attachment!!
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper describes the catalyzed deoxygenation of palm fatty acid distillate, with the aim of obtaining liquid biofuels.
The method is well described and experiments are correctly performed. Personally, I have some doubts that the biofuel can be used in amounts useful for "real life" use. The authors say that they used a 100 mL Parr reactor and that "Catalyst mass was 5 wt.% related to the mass of substrate", that - by the way - is not indicated. Therefore the process was performed in a small scale, thus shading doubts on the actual efficacy.
Maybe some comments will be welcomed, at least in Conclusions.
English should be checked. For example, in line 112 " Previous the analysis" is not correct: better "before the analysis" (or, if you prefer "prior to analysis")
line 291 "n-hexanoic acid" n- was discarded by IUPAC many years ago (I know it is still used, but it is wrong), no prefix being required for linear akes chains. And writing "linear alkanes" instead of "n-alkanes" does not take much trouble and is more clear for the reader.
Author Response
Please see the attachment!!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
After re-viewing the article, it is still not clear what is the composition of the solid waste emerging after deoxygenation reactions. I think that it is still necessary to present the characteristics of catalysts after deoxygenation reactions.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks to the authors for the well-organized responses to my comments. I think that a more detailed characterization of the used catalysts may be a topic for another article. The article can be published in the presented form.
