Biodiesel Production Catalyzed by Polyvinyl Guanidineacetic Membrane

Abstract

Polyvinyl guanidineacetic (PVG) was synthesized by the chemical grafting using poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and guanidineacetic acid. The fourier transform infrared (FTIR), thermogravimetry (TG) and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) results showed that the guanidineacetic groups were successfully introduced into the PVA. The effects of the amount of catalyst and reaction time on the PVG grafting rate were investigated. The PVG/non-woven fabrics (NWF) composite membrane as a heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production was successfully prepared by the solvent phase inversion. The effects of mass ratio of methanol/soybean oil, the IEC values of the composite membranes and reaction temperature on the transesterification conversions using the composite membrane for biodiesel were studied. The soybean oil conversion of 98.2% was obtained by the composite membranes under the optimum reaction conditions of reaction temperature of 338 K, methanol/oil mass ratio of 3:1, reaction time of 120 min and the alkali amount of catalytic membrane 18.0 mmol. After five runs, the conversion declined only 2.1%. And the kinetics of the reaction catalyzed by the composite membrane was performed as a first order reaction with an activation energy of 40.614 kJ/mol and pre-exponential factor of 7.60 × 104. The conversions obtained from the model are in good agreement with the experimental data. The quality of the biodiesel met the biodiesel requirements of Chinese Standard (GB/T 20828) and European Standard (EN 14214).