Mechanochemically synthesized CaO·ZnO catalyst for biodiesel production

Abstract

The transesterification of triglycerides (vegetable oil) with methanol using CaO·ZnO mixed oxides catalyst were conducted to produce Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME), i.e. biodiesel. The catalysts were used in the methanolysis of sunflower oil, at 60°C and 1 bar, using molar ratio of sunflower oil to methanol of 1:10 and with 2 wt % of catalyst based on oil weight. All catalysts displayed good activity in the methanolysis of sunflower oil, with the yield of FAME gt 90% after 4 hr of reaction. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the CHISA 2012 - 20th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and PRES 2012 - 15th Conference PRES (Prague, Czech Republic 8/25-29/2012).