Monoacylglycerols are nonionic surfactants traditionally produced from the glycerolysis of vegetable oils using alkaline catalysts in homogeneous medium and high temperatures, resulting in materials contaminated with soaps and with a bitter taste. In this work, the nanostructured oxides obtained by calcination of the layered double hydroxide Mg2Al-CO3 were used as catalysts in the glycerolysis of palm oil. It was possible to obtain a mixture of acylglycerols with similar chemical composition as obtained industrially by the traditional method when the experiments were conducted at 175 °C, with molar ratio glycerol:palm oil 2:1, for 2 h with 5 % catalyst (m m-1). The nanostructured oxides were characterized by X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy before and after the use as catalyst, and no structural changes were detected after the reactions. However, a small decrease in the conversion to mono and diacylglycerols was observed after the catalysts reuse experiments.
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