Comparison of different catalyst for biodiesel production

J.M. MARCHETTI; A.F. ERRAZU

Seul, Korea

Congreso; 14th International Congress on Catalysis; 2008

                Biodiesel production is currently done by using homogeneous basic catalyst. This technology is suitable when refine oils or oils with low amounts of free fatty acids (FFA) are employed. If the quantity of FFA is over 1% it is not recommendable to us sodium hydroxide as catalyst due to soap formation. This undesirable product consumes the catalyst and makes the down streaming purification much more complicated. Because the price of the refine oil is one of the most important variables on the economics of a biodiesel production plant, several studies have showed that different qualities of raw materials could be employed for biodiesel production. One of the newest raw materials employed is acid oil, frying oils, soapstocks, etc. All possible raw material which have high amounts of FFA (>1%) On this research, biodiesel production was done using acid oil, with an amount of free fatty acid of 10%w/w, ethanol and different catalyst such as potassium hydroxide, sulfuric acid and solid resin.  This study allow us to compare each catalyst to each other, seeing the advantages and disadvantages that each of them might have