Enhanced conversion of Glycerol to Glycerol carbonate on modified Bio-Char from reed plant

Abstract

The surplus glycerol produced from biodiesel production process as a by-product with high quantity can be considered as a good source to prepare glycerol carbonate (GC) whereas with each 1000 kg from biodiesel obtains 100 kg from glycerol. The aim of this paper is studying the possibility of converting the glycerol to glycerol carbonate using the bio-char prepared from reed plant as a catalyst. The catalyst was prepared at different temperatures ranging from 400-800°C. The results show that the bio-char prepared at 700 ᴼC gives a best one among the others types of bio-char, but the yield was increased to 67.80% using prepared bio-char and when the catalyst promoted by sodium hydroxide, the obtained yield reached to 98.3% and complete conversion. In this study, the complete conversion was achieved at optimum conditions which were 60ᴼC, 90 min, 3:1 DMC:G , 3%wt. catalyst loading and using bio-char modified with 3 molar NaOH .