TITLE:
Synthesis of biodiesel from Jatropha curcas L. seed oil using artificial zeolites loaded with CH3COOK as a heterogeneous catalyst
AUTHORS:
Wei Xue, You-Chun Zhou, Bao-An Song, Xia Shi, Jun Wang, Shi-Tao Yin, De-Yu Hu, Lin-Hong Jin, Song Yang
KEYWORDS:
Biodiesel; Heterogeneous Catalyst; Artificial Zeolites; Jatropha Curcas L. seed Oil
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.1 No.1,
July
2,
2009
ABSTRACT: An environmentally benign process was devel-oped for the transesterification of Jatropha curcas L. seed oil with methanol using artificial zeolites loaded with potassium acetate as a heterogeneous catalyst. After calcination for 5 h at 823 K, the catalyst loaded with 47 wt.% CH3COOK exhibited the highest efficiency and best catalytic activity. The easily prepared cata-lysts were characterized by means of X-ray dif-fraction and IR spectroscopy, as well as Hammett indicator titration. The results revealed a strong dependence of catalytic activity on ba-sicity. The optimum reaction conditions for transesterification of J. curcas oil were also in-vestigated. The methyl ester content in the bio-diesel product exceeded 91% after 4h reaction at reflux temperature in the presence of 2% solid catalyst and no water washing process is needed during workup.