Biokerosene from coconut and palm kernel oils: Production and properties of their blends with fossil kerosene

► Coconut and palm kernel oils have been converted to FAME with basic catalyst. ► The FAME’s have been subjected to fractional distillation at vacuum. ► The low boiling point fractions have been blended with two fossil kerosenes. ► Fossil kerosenes: straight-run atmospheric distillation cut and commercial Jet A1. ► The essential specifications required by ASTM D1655 were tested in these blends. Coconut and palm kernel oils have been transesterified with methanol by the classical homogeneous basic catalysis method with good yields. The FAME’s have been subjected to fractional distillation at vacuum, and the low boiling point fractions have been blended with two types of fossil kerosene, a straight-run atmospheric distillation cut (hydrotreated) and a commercial Jet A1. The blends of palm kernel biokerosene and Jet A1 meet some specifications selected for study of the ASTM D1655 standard: smoke point, density, flash point, viscosity at −20°C and freezing point and they do not comply with the low calorific value by a very narrow margin. On the other hand, the blends of palm kernel biokerosene and atmospheric distillation fossil kerosene only met the density and viscosity at −20°C parameters. The blends of coconut biokerosene and atmospheric distillation fossil kerosene meet the following specifications: density, viscosity at −20°C and lubricity. It is especially noticeable that all the blends of 5vol.% of biokerosene and fossil kerosenes do not meet the low calorific value by a very narrow margin, less than 1.0MJkg−1. With these preliminary results, we can conclude that it would be feasible to blend coconut and palm kernel biokerosenes prepared in this way with commercial Jet A1 up to 10vol.% of the former, if the IATA organization relaxes very slightly its standards.