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Glycerol Etherification using n ‐Butanol to Produce Oxygenated Additives for Biodiesel Fuel over H‐Beta Zeolite Catalysts
Author(s) -
Nandiwale Kakasaheb Y.,
Patil Shivraj E.,
Bokade Vijay V.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201300169
Subject(s) - glycerol , catalysis , zeolite , biodiesel , chemistry , selectivity , butanol , n butanol , biodiesel production , organic chemistry , chemical engineering , ethanol , engineering
The catalytic etherification of glycerol has been systematically studied in batch process by using n ‐butanol to produce oxygenated additives for biodiesel fuels over various solid‐acid catalysts, such as H‐beta zeolite, ZSM‐5, K10, etc.. The present work includes a detailed study of the optimization of the etherification process parameters, such as catalyst loading (7–20 wt % of glycerol), molar ratio of glycerol/ n ‐butanol (1:6 to 1:15), speed of agitation (100–400 rpm), reaction temperature (413–453 K), and reaction time (0.5–4 h) in view of maximizing the glycerol conversion and selectivity towards mono‐butyl‐glycerol ether (ME). The catalyst reusability was studied using the optimized process parameters. Amongst the studied catalysts, the H‐beta zeolite was found to be the most promising for the etherification of glycerol with glycerol conversion of 55 % and a 98 % selectivity towards ME formation. The H‐beta zeolite was found to be an active and stable catalyst for up to 4 cycles. The use of n ‐butanol as alkylating agent is presented for first time, to the authors knowledge. The reaction was performed at milder operating conditions (0.5 MPa) than previously reported (2 MPa). A kinetic model was developed for the etherification reaction and the data obtained at optimized process parameters was used to calculate the kinetic parameters. The reaction rate constants at different reaction temperatures, activation energies, and pre‐exponential factors were obtained for the etherification reaction with an accuracy of R 2 >0.989.