A homogeneous or a heterogeneous acid or base catalyst is generally used in biodiesel production to increase the yield. Earlier studies showed that cornstarch was more effective than the conventional starch as a precursor in developing acid catalysts for biodiesel production in terms of yield and energy efficiency. However, heterogeneous acid catalysts suffer from a low number of acidic sites and diffusional limitations that can be theoretically improved by increasing the mesoporous nature of the catalyst. In this study, a series of heterogeneous mesoporous solid acid catalysts, derived from starch, are synthesized and employed to overcome the disadvantages of other catalysts mentioned above. Mesoporous acid catalysts were obtained by the expansion of starch, including gelatinization, retrogradation and dehydration <i>via </i>solvent exchange, followed by pyrolysis and sulfonation. The resulted catalysts are highly active in esterification of oleic acid (10 mmol) with methanol (100 mmol) at 80°C. Conversion of &gt;90% is achieved within 10min of the reaction with ~2.3% catalyst loading. &gt;60% conversion is obtained with 0.5% catalyst loading for the same time of the reaction. Thermal reaction was found to be as effective as ultrasonic reaction.

Development of heterogeneous mesoporous acid catalysts for esterification of oleic acid with methanol

249th National Meeting (2015)

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