Use of ionic liquids in biodiesel production: a review

Abstract

-This paper discusses the feasibility of the use of ionic liquids as catalysts in the biodiesel production field, describing some studies already published in the literature on this theme. Ionic liquids are regarded as a new generation of catalysts in the chemical industry, with several uses in different commercial segments. However only a few publications involving this topic can be found in the literature addressing the manufacture of biodiesel from vegetable oils or animal fats. Through the analysis of the data generated in the studies reviewed, it is possible to affirm that ionic liquids present great potential as catalysts for biodiesel production, but there are some challenges to be faced, such as the production of ionic liquids with low cost, easy recovery and with the possibility of reutilization of the catalyst for several cycles.

Effect of Ionic Liquids on Oil Palm Biomass Fiber Dissolution

“…Obviously, they are far expensive than traditional solvents and catalysts used in chemical reactions. For example, the cost of commonly used ILs, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate are USD 1,972 and USD 2,360 per kilogram (kg), respectively which is 25 times far expensive if compare to NaOH which only cost USD 80 per kg (Andreani and Rocha 2012). For instance, choline-based and tetraalkylphosphonium or tetraalkylammonium salts are intrinsically less expensive than others (Pernak et al 2007).…”

PERFORMANCE OF LOOFA-IMMOBILIZED Rhizopus oryzae IN THE ENZYMATIC PRODUCTION OF BIODIESEL WITH USE OF OLEIC ACID IN n-HEXANE MEDIUM

“…The requirements of the starting materials necessary to produce biodiesel indicate the important role of using dehydrated vegetable oils as well as anhydrous alkaline catalysts. The presence of a higher content of free fatty acids (FFAs) in the lipidic substrate starting material necessitates the introduction of a washing step to remove soaps that form, increasing the economic burden of the process (Fjerbaek et al, 2009;Andreani and Rocha, 2012). In the last decade, great attention has been directed towards the enzymatic transesterification process, and lipases have been the focus of almost all of this research (Fukuda et al, 2001;Hama et al, 2006;Bajaj et al, 2010).…”

Development of a Novel Process to produce Biodiesel and its use as fuel in CI Engine performance study and exhaust analysis

“…Biodiesel is produced from plant oils, animal fats, used cooking oil and algae through energy intensive transesterification reaction and termed as classical process [4][5][6]. It becomes challenge to minimize the cost of its production mainly through the reduction of process parameters/steps by adopting various techniques: Situtransesterification [7], use of ultrasonic energy in the range of 20-100 kHz or more, use of cosolvent to reduce excess amount of alcohol uses in the reversible process for driving it forward direction [4] but followed with recovery of cosolvent, employing catalyst free critical methanol/CO 2 replacing homogeneous with heterogeneous catalyst [8], carry out the reaction in ionic liquid [9], etc. For the first time, the researchers have made both the use of ultrasound energy and cosolvent to speed up the reaction and obtain a high yield of product with much less reaction parameters.…”

“…At methanol/oil molar ratio of 6:1, temperature 25 0 C and in the presence of cosolvent the sunflower oil was almost completely converted to biodiesel in just 20 minutes of reaction time whereas the same reaction without cosolvent gave only 78% conversion. Heterogeneously catalyzed transesterification reaction in the presence and absence of cosolvents has also been investigated [8,9]. Although co solvents help to accelerate the transeseterification reaction, but they have to be recovered and reactivated from the product biodiesel during its purification for its reuses which not only makes the task difficult, but also increases the cost of biodiesel production.…”