Abstract
A catalyst comprised of SnO2 impregnated on ZnO nanowires, which presented remarkable ability to catalyze fatty acid esterification/transesterification reactions, is reported. For optimization of reaction conditions, artificially acidified soybean oil with 10 wt.% oleic acid was used as a model feed. The optimized conditions were: 150 °C, 6 h, 5 g of oil, catalyst concentration of 5%, and methanol:oil molar ratio of 15:1. The catalyst achieved 92% of total fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) content and was used five times without the necessity of catalyst washing from one reaction to the other. Then, such conditions were applied to produce biodiesel from the oil extracted from Scenedesmus sp. microalgae; the system reached 72% of FAME content, without any previous refining or degumming process of the oil. Rietveld refinement, X-ray diffraction, elemental mapping in scanning transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and pyridine-desorption Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the material.
Highlights
The finite natural fossil fuel resources and the necessity of mitigating carbon dioxide emissions are great concerns at the moment.[1]
Such a substrate was used for catalytic optimization before application of the material in the biodiesel production from the oil extracted from Scenedesmus sp. microalgae
Considering the acidity of the synthesized material, which presents a higher concentration of Lewis sites than Brønsted ones, it is plausible to expect that the SnO2/zinc oxide (ZnO) catalyst presents a higher activity to transesterification reactions; the bifunctionality of the material may be an important feature for both reactions
Summary
The finite natural fossil fuel resources and the necessity of mitigating carbon dioxide emissions are great concerns at the moment.[1]. Our group has obtained a Brønsted/ Lewis acid catalyst from Cr/Al oxide and employed it in the synthesis of babassu oil biodiesel. Known for some time, the transesterification reaction of soybean oil with methanol performed with some transition metal salts suggests that the strength of Lewis acid sites is: Sn2+ >> Zn2+ > Pb2+ ca.
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