Kinetics of oleic acid esterification with methanol in the presence of triglycerides

In the present work, the kinetics of oleic acid esterification with methanol has been studied by using an acid ion-exchange polymeric resin (Relite CFS) as the heterogeneous catalyst. The kinetics of the reaction has been studied by performing batch runs at different temperatures and in the presence of a certain amount of triglyceride for simulating an oil with a high content of free fatty acids, which is of great potential interest as a raw material in the biodiesel production process. The experimental data have been interpreted with a second-order, pseudo-homogeneous kinetic model, and a good agreement between the experimental data and the model has been obtained.