Synergistic effect of mixed methanol/ethanol on transesterification of waste food oil using p‐toluenesulfonic acid as catalyst

Abstract

In this study, inexpensive waste food oil was used as raw material, the p‐toluenesulfonic acid as catalyst, the methanol/ethanol as a transesterification agent to prepare biodiesel was reported. The results indicated that the mixed methanol/ethanol contributed to improving the biodiesel performance. Specifically, when mole percentage of ethanol in the total alcohol was 30%, the yield reached 99.55%, and heating value reached 40.47 MJ/Kg. It was higher than that of single methanol and single ethanol as transesterification agent, respectively. The concentration of saturated fatty acid esters in the biodiesel were also increased by mixed methanol/ethanol as transesterification agent (i.e. increase in the proportion of H in C/H), resulting in higher biodiesel heating value. The mixed methanol/ethanol also showed a good synergistic effect in the biodiesel preparation process. The solubility of ethanol in oil is superior to that in methanol, and ethanol plays a double role of the cosolvent and the transesterification agent. Methanol weakened the drawbacks of the steric effect and emulsification effect of ethanol. This study showed that the methanol can be partially substituted by ethanol. It reduced not only the dependence on methanol, but also the yield and heating value of biodiesel can be increased. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 1547–1553, 2015

Enhancing anaerobic digestion performance of crude lipid in food waste by enzymatic pretreatment

“…TS and VS were determined according to Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater (Wef, 1998). The saponification and acid value of FOG were determined according to Chinese National Standards (Ma et al, 2015).…”

Effects of the Addition of [2hea][hx] on Biodiesel Synthesis Using Methanol and Methanol/Ethanol Mixture

“…Both methanol and ethanol have been used successfully in the production of biodiesel (Ma et al, 2015). Methanol is the often the first choice due to its physical and chemical properties.…”

“…Additionally, it has greater solubility in oils than methanol. Nevertheless, ethanol can produce steric and emulsification effects after transesterification, which difficult the purification of biodiesel and compromises the yield of the process (Khudhair et al, 2018;Li et al, 2013;Ma et al, 2015;Verma & Sharma, 2016).…”

“…The type of alcohol and the molar ratios influence biodiesel yield and its properties. Studies using the methanol/ethanol mixtures have been conducted in an attempt to benefit from the synergistic effect and the specific properties of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts (Khudhair et al, 2018;Lam & Li, 2011;Ma et al, 2015;Ma et al, 2016).…”

Esterification of Jatropha Oil with Isopropanol via Ultrasonic Irradiation

“…To avoid the use of edible oils with relatively high prices and the potential problem of food scarcity, inedible oils have become major raw materials for manufacturing biodiesel nowadays [13][14][15]. For example, jatropha oil (JO) has received much attention in this respect [16][17][18][19].…”