Calcium/chitosan spheres as catalyst for biodiesel production |
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| Authors: | Leandro Marques Correia Natália de Sousa Campelo Raquel de Freitas Albuquerque Célio Loureiro Cavalcante Jr Juan Antonio Cecilia Enrique Rodríguez‐Castellón Eric Guibal Rodrigo Silveira Vieira |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Grupo de Pesquisa em Separa??es por Adsor??o (GPSA), Departamento de Engenharia Química, Universidade Federal do Ceará 2. – 3. UFC, Fortaleza‐CE, Brazil;4. Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain;5. Ecole des Mines d'Alès, Centre des Matériaux des Mines d'Alès, Ales Cedex, France |
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| Abstract: | Chitosan, an abundant biopolymer extracted from crustacean shells, can be used as a structuring agent by the insertion of calcium oxide and used as a catalyst in transesterification reactions. These calcium‐incorporated chitosan spheres were calcined in order to obtain a porous calcium catalyst without organic material. The materials were characterized using X‐ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopies, temperature‐programmed desorption of CO2, scanning electron microscopy and specific surface area analysis. Afterwards the calcined calcium/chitosan spheres were used in the transesterification reaction of sunflower oil with methanol. The conversion of sunflower oil to methyl esters (YFAME), under optimized reaction conditions, which were determined by factorial experimental design (XMR, 1:9; XCAT, 3 wt%; time, 4 h; temperature, 60 °C; magnetic stirring, 1000 rpm), was 56.12 ± 0.32 wt%. These results show that chitosan can be used as a precursor for the formation of calcium/chitosan spheres, yielding a porous calcium oxide (with higher surface area) that can be used as an alkaline catalyst for biodiesel production. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry |
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| Keywords: | chitosan calcium oxide transesterification reaction methyl esters |
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