Bioenergy II: Acid Diphosphates as Catalysts for the Production of Methyl and Ethyl Esters from Vegetable Oils

Abstract

Acidic lanthanum and aluminum diphosphates were prepared and characterized (surface area, XRD, FT-IR, 31P-NMR and 27Al-NMR). These materials were used as catalyst for the esterification of oleic acid and transesterification of soybean oil. Under optimized conditions the methyl and ethyl ester yields were above 95%. Although the catalysts are recyclable, they slowly lost their catalytic activities, due to leaching of the phosphate.

Metal phosphate catalyzed dehydration of sorbitol under hydrothermal conditions

“…In recent years increasing interest has been focused on trivalent cations containing phosphates used as catalysts in organic synthesis and in petrochemical industry [27]. The Me(III) phosphates are cheaper catalysts than quadrovalent phosphate catalysts.…”