Preparation of rapeseed oil esters of lower aliphatic alcohols |
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Authors: | Dragan Nimcevic Rupert Puntigam Manfred Wörgetter J Richard Gapes |
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Affiliation: | (1) Federal Institute of Agricultural Engineering, 3250 Wieselburg, Austria;(2) Institute of Chemical Engineering, Fuel Technology and Environmental Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Getreidemarkt 9/159, 1060 Vienna, Austria |
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Abstract: | Rapeseed oil esters with lower aliphatic alcohols (C1−C4) were prepared in simple batch mode using an alkali (KOH) or acid (H2SO4) catalyst. The transesterification reaction conditions were optimized in order to obtain high yields of esters of the quality
defined by standards for biodiesel fuels and for a short reaction time. Under these conditions it was possible to prepare
only the methyl and ethyl esters catalyzed by KOH. Propyl and butyl esters were obtained only under acid catalysis conditions.
The reaction catalyzed by H2SO4 was successfully accelerated using slightly higher catalyst concentrations at the boiling points of the alcohols used. The
branched-chain alcohols reacted more slowly than their linear homologs, while t-butanol did not react at all. It was also possible to transesterify rapeseed oil using a mixture of alcohols characteristic
of the end products of some fermentation processes (e.g., the acetone-butanol fermentation). A simple calculation was made
which showed that, because of the higher price of longer-chain alcohols and because of the more intensive energy input during
production the esters of these alcohols, they are economically unfavorable as biodiesel fuels when compared with the methyl
ester. |
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Keywords: | Biodiesel fuels butyl esters estimated ester production ethyl esters methyl esters propyl esters transesterification |
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