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Esterification of fatty acids from waste cooking oil to biodiesel over a sulfonated resin/PVA composite

Zhang, Honglei; Gao, Jiarui; Zhao, Zengdian; Chen, George Zheng; Wu, Tao; He, Feng

Authors

Honglei Zhang

Jiarui Gao

Zengdian Zhao

George Zheng Chen

Tao Wu

Feng He



Abstract

Sulfonated cation exchange resins (s-CERs) have been widely studied as a replacement of liquid acids for the catalysis of esterification of free fatty acids (FFAs) to produce biodiesel with water as the only by-product. However, the water produced has strong affinity to sulfonate groups in s-CERs, which block the reactive sites for esterification and thus reduce the activity of a catalyst. To overcome this technical barrier, we have designed an s-CER/PVA composite by incorporating s-CER fines within a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) matrix. PVA has a much stronger absorption preference for water than s-CERs and has very low selectivity for reactants (FFAs and methanol), which enables continuous removal of the produced water and liberation of reactive sulfonate sites in s-CERs for catalysis. With s-CER/PVA, FFA conversion was increased from 80.1% to 97.5% after an 8-hour reaction and the turnover frequency (TOF) was increased more than 3.3 times. The TOF of s-CER/PVA was also 2.6 times higher than that of sulfuric acid, suggesting that water-less, heterogeneous sulfonate sites are more reactive than water-blocked homogeneous ones. The reusability of s-CER/PVA was also enhanced due to the fact that the produced water that could cause deactivation of the s-CERs was largely removed by PVA.

Citation

Zhang, H., Gao, J., Zhao, Z., Chen, G. Z., Wu, T., & He, F. (in press). Esterification of fatty acids from waste cooking oil to biodiesel over a sulfonated resin/PVA composite. Catalysis Science and Technology, 2016(6), https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CY02133B

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 4, 2016
Online Publication Date Apr 5, 2016
Deposit Date Jun 5, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Catalysis Science and Technology
Print ISSN 2044-4753
Electronic ISSN 2044-4761
Publisher Royal Society of Chemistry
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2016
Issue 6
DOI https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CY02133B
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/786512
Publisher URL http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2016/CY/C5CY02133B#!divAbstract

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