Daniel Bastos de Rezende
UFMG, Brazil
Title: Performance of CaO from different sources as a catalyst precursor in soybean oil transesterification: kinetics and leaching evaluation
Biography
Biography: Daniel Bastos de Rezende
Abstract
Calcium oxide (CaO) has been studied as one of the most effi cient heterogeneous catalysts for biodiesel production, but ther are few studies about the effects of CaO morphology on calcium leaching and catalyst activity. In the present work, soybean transesterifi cation was performed using CaO from diff erent sources (commercial, synthesized from chicken eggshell and produced by a carbothermal route) to develop a comparative study. The 1H NMR results showed that the soybean oil transesterifi cation catalyzed with CaO, derived from all sources, yielded greater than 93% (m/m) methyl esters, 4 h refl ux, a molar methanol: Oil ratio of 12:1 and 3% catalyst. Th e amount of leached calcium was 219 ppm for the biodiesel synthesized with CaO derived from commercial sources, 194 ppm for CaO from eggshell and 93 ppm for CaO s from a carbothermal route. As consequence of higher Ca leaching content, CaO co precursor presented higher rate constant. Th is can be explained by the prompt reaction of Ca leaching and glycerol, yielding calcium diglyceroxide, which is the main catalytic specimen. Th e study showed that the homogeneous contribution from the leached species can be considered negligible. The heterogeneous catalysis was confi rmed for all diff erent CaO sources studied.