Preliminary Studies of Palm Oil Glycerolysis Catalysed by Nanostructured Oxides Obtained by Calcination of Layered Double Hydroxides

Abstract

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.