Interesterification for biofuel synthesis over HJ-2# caly-supported SO42-/ZrO2 solid acid catalyst

Abstract

This study makes use of soybean oil to produce biodiesel using SO42-/ZrO2-HJ-2# caly solid acid catalyst (SZ-HJ-2#). It was through coprecipitation and impregnation method that the catalyst was prepared which was then characterized by means of FE-SEM, XRD, EDS, BET, FT-IR, ICP-MS, NH3-TPD and XPS. The catalytic property of the synthesized catalyst was determined by using it to produce biodiesel from soybean oil. A study was carried out to find the effect of the different preparation condition of catalyst affecting the process. For SZ-HJ-2#, Optimized condition of 0.5 mol/L(zirconium salt solution), 1.5 mol/L (the concentration of sulfuric acid impregnating solution) and 450℃(calcination temperature). Optimized conditions of 8.32:1 methanol to soybean oil molar ratio and catalytic loading of 1 wt% at 55℃ with a stirring rate of 500 rpm for a reaction duration of 10 h gave a maximum yield of 89.6 wt%. Moreover, the further investigation indicated the catalytic activities were closely related to the ratio of Brönsted acid sites and intensity on catalysts. Besides, the excellent performance of the catalyst during recycling was shown by conducting reusability study.