Esterification of Oils with High Level of Free Fatty Acids: an initial rate reaction study

J.M. MARCHETTI; V.U. MIGUEL; A.F. ERRAZU

Gramado, Río Grande do Sul, Brasil

Congreso; XX SICAT – Simpósio Ibero-Americano de Catálise; 2006

Frying oils has become the newest raw material for the Biodiesel production. This oil has a great amount of free fatty acid that could be esterified into Biodiesel increasing the process productivity. An extensive study of the initial rate reaction using different catalyst and by changing the operations conditions has been done. The interest was focused over the variation of the reaction temperature, the molar ratio of alcohol/oil and the effect of changing the catalyst employed. An ideal frying oils was obtain by mixing refine sunflower oil with pure oleic acid. Depending on the amount of free fatty acid of the system the properties that it will have. Sulfuric acid, potassium hydroxide and basics resins has been used as catalyst. On this study a net tendency of how the initial rate reaction varies with the most important variables of the process has been found. This investigation has allows us to developed a predictive method, for each catalysts, to know the final conversion that could be achieved by the system just by knowing the initial rate of the esterification reaction. This could be an interesting technical result for the definition of final point or final time of reaction for different sequences