Sulfated Zirconia Catalysts for Glycerol Etherification with Benzyl Alcohol

MARIA A. JAWORSKI; SERGIO RODRIGUEZ; GUILLERMO J. SIRI; ARTURO ROMERO SALVADOR; MONICA L. CASELLA; AURORA SANTOS LOPEZ

Lyon

Congreso; 11th European Congress on Catalysis EuropaCat-XI; 2013

Société Chimique de France (SCF) - Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)

Biodiesel (fatty acid alkyl esters) is an alternative diesel fuel derived from the reaction of vegetable oils or lipids and a short chain alcohol [1]. The use of glycerol produced as byproduct of biodiesel manufacture is, nowadays, one of the biggest challenges of the biofuel industry. It is formed in about 10 wt% in the transesterification process. In global terms, the glycerol produced from biodiesel accounted to about 1.2 Mt in 2012. For that reason the scienti-fic communitty is concentrated on finding new uses for glycerol. One alternative is the etherification of glycerol into oxygenate products of industrial application [2]. The selective mono- or di-etherification of glycerol with alco-hols using acid catalysts originate chemicals with high added value [3]. In this sense the objective of this work is the glycerol etherification with benzyl alcohol, using zirconia-based heterogeneous acid catalysts prepared in our laboratory, aiming to produce mono- (ME) and di-benzyl glycerol ethers (DE).