At present, industries and transportations have played a permanent role in our economy. Therefore, in order to sustain economic growth, the price of fossil fuel and lubricating oil need to be controlled. Currently commercial synthesis lubricant is produced from 1-decene that is obtained primarily by processing crude oil. Since crude oil is running out, it is necessary to find an alternative raw material that can be used to produce 1-decene. Fortunately, 1-decene can be produce from 1-decanol through the dehydration reaction.
The dehydration reaction is usually catalyzed by γ-Al2O3. Various alcohols have already been studied as a feedstock for dehydration, such as methanol, ethanol and butanol. Recently, the result from dehydration of larger molecular weight alcohol showed that yield of olefin is greater at higher temperature. On the contrary, formation of ether will be favored at lower temperature. In this study we aimed to investigate the conversion of 1-decanol, obtained from natural oil and fats, to 1-decene which can be used as the feed stock for production of synthesis lubricant oil in the future, An optimal operating condition is found by varying the temperature between 300-350oC, weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) 2.5 h-1 and flow rate inert gas approximately 50-60 mL/min. Furthermore, BET, NH3-TPD and CO2-TPD techniques were used to characterize γ-alumina doped samples and the result were related to their catalytic performance.