Transesterification of sunflower oil with ethanol using sodium ethoxide as catalyst. Effect of the reaction conditions

Typically, biodiesel is produced using vegetable oil and methanol as raw materials, and sodium methoxide as catalyst, whereupon the obtained product is composed of methyl esters. However, the use of ethyl esters as biodiesel presents many advantages compared to the methyl esters. In this work, the t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sanchez, Barbara Sabrina, Benitez, Belarmina, Querini, Carlos Alberto, Mendow, Gustavo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/34113
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/34113
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Sodium Ethoxide
Biodiesel
Ethanol
Ethyl Ester
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.4
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2
Descripción
Sumario:Typically, biodiesel is produced using vegetable oil and methanol as raw materials, and sodium methoxide as catalyst, whereupon the obtained product is composed of methyl esters. However, the use of ethyl esters as biodiesel presents many advantages compared to the methyl esters. In this work, the transesterification with ethanol to produce ethyl esters using sodium ethoxide as catalyst was studied. The effect of temperature and alcohol and catalyst concentration on the reaction conversion was investigated, in order to optimize these parameters while also meeting the quality standards. It was found that the optimal reaction conditions are: 1.6 wt.% sodium ethoxide, 25 v/v% ethanol and 55 °C, which allow obtaining a biodiesel composed 100% by ethyl esters that complies with the international quality standards. On the other hand, it was observed that methanolysis reactions are faster than the ethanolysis and sodium methoxide catalyst is more active than the corresponding ethoxide, due to the higher steric hindrance of the ethoxi-radical and to the more intense saponification of sodium ethoxide in ethanol medium.