Tetrahydrofuran-Assisted Base Catalysed Transesterification of Rice Bran Oil for Biodiesel Production

Abstract

Tetrahydrofuran-assisted base catalysed transesterification of rice bran oil was carried out for biodiesel production. The main problem of conventional base catalysed transesterification reaction is that the reactants are not readily miscible and thus high reaction temperature and longer reaction time is required for the transesterification reaction to complete. The addition of co-solvent such as THF (tetrahydrofuran) enables the reaction to occur in single phase. The base catalysed ethyl ester production aided with tetrahydrofuran as co-solvent was optimised in terms of amount of KOH catalyst, ethanol to oil molar ratio, THF to ethanol ratio, reaction time and reaction temperature. The efficient reaction conditions using tetrahydrofuran as co-solvent were 2% catalyst concentration, 8:1 ethanol to oil molar ratio, THF to ethanol ratio of 0.27, reaction time 45 min and reaction temperature 40 °C. The maximum recovery and conversion of oil into ethyl ester was reported to be 75.8 and 95%. The co-solvent assisted transesterification thus can save time, energy and labour for large scale production of biodiesel.