(173g) Application of Ferric Sulfate as Catalyst for Conversion of Free Fatty Content of Acid Oil to Biodiesel
AIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process Safety
2008
2008 Spring Meeting & 4th Global Congress on Process Safety
Emerging Energy Frontiers in Research and Innovation
Recent Advances in Alcohols Production and Their Energy Usage Including Fuel Cells I
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 - 10:35am to 11:00am
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel for diesel engines consisting of the
alkyl monoesters of fatty acids from vegetable oils. Currently most of
the biodiesel is produced from transesterification reaction. This
reaction requires vegetable oil, methanol, and an alkaline catalyst.
But, the high cost of vegetable oil, its importance as a food product
and presence of high content of FFA makes cost-effective production of
biodiesel very challenging.
In our research, we are investigating the conversion of the free fatty
acids (FFA) content of waste acid-oils from refineries to biodiesel
and related kinetics. The problem with processing these acid-oils
containing large amounts of FFAs that cannot be converted to biodiesel
using an alkaline catalyst. In this paper, we propose application of
ferric sulphate as acid catalyst to esterify the free fatty acids
before transesterifying the triglycerides with an alkaline catalyst to
complete the reaction. Therefore, the synthesis of biodiesel now
consists of two-step acid-base catalysis.
The paper discusses the reaction kinetic analysis of the
above-mentioned acid catalyzed step to finalize the catalyst loadings,
methanol proportions and the reaction time for obtaining optimum
conversion.