Bacterial Cellulose and Biodegradable Superbase for Heterogeneous Transesterification to Alkyl Esters
Cristina Ionela Gogoaşă,
Cristian Eugen Răducanu,
Laura Elisabeta Petraş,
Doinița Roxana Cioroiu Tîrpan,
Gabriel Vasilievici,
Andreea Luiza Mîrţ,
Tănase Dobre,
Oana Cristina Pârvulescu
Affiliations
Cristina Ionela Gogoaşă
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., 011061 Bucharest, Romania
Cristian Eugen Răducanu
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., 011061 Bucharest, Romania
Laura Elisabeta Petraş
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., 011061 Bucharest, Romania
Doinița Roxana Cioroiu Tîrpan
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Ovidius University of Constanta, 124 Mamaia Blvd., 900527 Constanta, Romania
Gabriel Vasilievici
National Institute for Research Development for Chemistry and Petrochemistry-ICECHIM, 202 Spl. Independentei, S6, 060021 Bucharest, Romania
Andreea Luiza Mîrţ
National Institute for Research Development for Chemistry and Petrochemistry-ICECHIM, 202 Spl. Independentei, S6, 060021 Bucharest, Romania
Tănase Dobre
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., 011061 Bucharest, Romania
Oana Cristina Pârvulescu
Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, 1-7 Gheorghe Polizu St., 011061 Bucharest, Romania
Heterogeneous catalysts, basic, acidic or bifunctional, can catalyze transesterification reactions where the raw material has a significant content of FFA fatty acids, such as used cooking oils or other lipid-based residues, which do not have the purity required for homogeneous catalysis, in which case the purity of the triglycerides above 99.5% is the first condition for the initiation of the reaction, to avoid saponification. In this work, a green supported catalyst was developed, using bacterial cellulose as catalytic support and biodegradable superbase as a chemical compound, for transesterification reaction to obtain alkyl esters, yielding over 99% of its content at 70 °C temperature and 7.5% catalyst loading (1.5/20 w/w catalyst:oil). A Plackett-–Burman design was used for screening experiments to explore the main effect in terms of catalytic activity and performance of the triglyceride conversion reaction.
