What is the type of reaction that is involved in producing biodiesel?
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What is the type of reaction that is involved in producing biodiesel?
transesterification
The chemical reaction that converts a vegetable oil or animal fat to biodiesel is called “transesterification.” This is a long name for a simple process of combining a chemical compound called an “ester” and an alcohol to make another ester and another alcohol. Oils and fats are included in the ester family.
What is the transesterification reaction?
Transesterification is an organic reaction in which the R group of an alcohol is exchanged with an R’ group of an ester. This is generally done via the introduction of an acid or base catalyst to the reaction mixture. However, it can also be done using certain enzyme catalysts (such as lipases).
What is bio diesel explain transesterification and advantages of bio diesel?
Biodiesel is an alternative biofuel that can replace diesel oil without requiring modifications to the engine and advantageously produces cleaner emissions. Biodiesel can be produced through transesterification process between oil or fat and alcohol to form esters and glycerol.
Which plant is used for biodiesel production?
Biodiesel can be made from oils which have been extracted from plants such as palm, soybean, oilseed rape, or sunflower.
What are the catalysts that commonly used in the transesterification process?
Sulfuric acid, sulfonic acid, hydrochloric acid, organic sulfonic acid, and ferric sulphate are most commonly acids used as catalysts in transesterification [14]. In the production of biodiesel, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid are favoured as catalyst [12].
Why methanol is used in transesterification?
Methanol and ethanol are the most often used alcohols in biodiesel production. Methanol is particularly preferred because of its physical and chemical advantages. Beside its reaction with triglycerides is quick and it can be easily dissolved in NaOH [57].
What catalyst is used in transesterification?
Transesterification can be catalyzed by acids catalysts, preferably by sulfonic and sulfuric acids. These catalysts give very high yields in alkyl esters but these reactions are slow, requiring typically temperature above 100 °C and more than 3 h to complete the conversion [23].
Why is potassium hydroxide used in making biodiesel?
Potassium hydroxide as a catalyst in biodiesel Good biodiesel uses KOH as its caustic catalyst. It produces a high-quality fuel and is easy to mix with methanol, plus its by-product can be used to make quality liquid soap or fertilizer.
How are biofuels made from plants?
There are various ways of making biofuels, but they generally use chemical reactions, fermentation, and heat to break down the starches, sugars, and other molecules in plants. The resulting products are then refined to produce a fuel that cars or other vehicles can use.
What are the main plant oils used for biodiesel?
Biodiesel is produced by transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats. Vegetable oils (mainly soybean oil) are the main feedstocks for U.S. biodiesel production.
Which of the following is an example of transesterification reaction?
The reverse reaction, methanolysis, is also an example of transesterification. This process has been used to recycle polyesters into individual monomers (see plastic recycling). It is also used to convert fats (triglycerides) into biodiesel. This conversion was one of the first uses.
What is the ratio of methanol for transesterification?
The transesterification reaction requires 1-1.5 gallons methanol for every 10 gallons of oil used to make biodiesel (oil-to-methanol ratio of 8:1). For maximum yield, however, more alcohol is usually used.
Why KOH is used in transesterification?
KOH on the other hand being liquid does not seem to interfere with the reaction. The result is that we can process much higher titration oils with KOH than we can with NaOH. KOH is a heavier molecule than NaOH and since we weigh our catalyst we use more KOH than we use of NaOH.
Why is NaOH used as a catalyst in transesterification?
CH3OH (methanol) and NaOH (sodium hydroxide) as base catalyst are mostly used in this process because of their lowest costs, higher reaction rates and higher yields. From the WCO generation of about 80 lites per week, yield for biodiesel production is considered in the range of 80-90%.
