Screening, optimization and kinetics of Jatropha curcas oil transesterification with heterogeneous catalysts

• Autor(a) principal: Zanette, Andréia F.
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: Barella, Rodrigo Augusto, Pergher, Sibele Berenice Castellã, Treichel, Helen, Oliveira, Débora, Mazutti, Marcio A., Silva, Edson Antonio, Oliveira, Jose Vladimir
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRN
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/jspui/handle/123456789/29181
• topic: Biodiesel; Jatropha curcas oil; Heterogeneous catalysis; Kinetics

This work investigates the production of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) from Jatropha curcas oil using a variety of heterogeneous catalysts: resins, zeolites, clays, hydrotalcites, aluminas and niobium oxide. For this purpose, a catalyst screening was first conducted in a batch reactor at the following operating conditions: oil to methanol molar ratio of 1:9, 6 h of reaction, 5 wt% catalyst, at 333 and 393 K. From the screening step, KSF clay and Amberlyst 15 catalysts were selected to carry out a 23 full factorial central composite rotatable design so as to elucidate the effects of process variables on FAME yield. The optimum reaction conditions for both catalysts were found to be oil to methanol molar ratio of 1:12, 5 wt% of catalyst, 433 K and 6 h of reaction with a FAME yield of about 70 wt%. A kinetic study was then experimentally performed and a semi-empirical model was built to represent the experimental data. Finally, catalyst re-utilization in five successive batch experiments was evaluated at the optimized conditions.