Ball-milling as effective and economical process for biodiesel production under Kraft lignin activated carbon stabilized potassium carbonate

Abstract

Biodiesel is a typical renewable energy and the previous transesterification processes for biodiesel production mainly focus on thermocatalytic methods. In this paper, the ball-milling process was investigated into the biodiesel production under Kraft lignin activated carbon stabilized K2CO3. Biodiesel yield increased to 66 % after only 5 min and reached 100 % within 25 min under optimal ball-milling conditions (0.5 g of the catalyst; methanol/oil molar ratio 18:1; 195 g of ball-mill beads; 1400 rpm; 25 °C). The power demand between the thermocatalytic method and the ball-milling method was also compared. Based on the computation, the ball-milling method has lower power demand than the traditional method (38 vs 201 kWh·mol−1). Therefore, the ball-milling method is an effective and economical process for biodiesel production.