Reaction kinetics of soybean oil transesterification using heterogeneous metal oxide catalysts

Homogeneous acid or base catalysts dissolve fully in the glycerol layer and partially in the fatty acid methyl ester (biodiesel) layer in the triglyceride transesterification process. Heterogeneous (solid) catalysts, on the other hand, can prevent catalyst contamination making product separation much simpler. In the present work, the transesterification kinetics of five different solid catalysts with soybean oil is presented. It is found that heterogeneous catalysts require much higher temperatures and pressures to achieve acceptable conversion levels compared to homogeneous catalysts. Subsequent to preliminary investigations, transesterifications were conducted for selected high performance solid catalysts, i.e., MgO, CaO, BaO, PbO, and MnO2 in a high pressure reactor up to a temperature of 215 degrees C. The yield of the fatty acid methyl esters and the kinetics (rate constant and order) of the reaction are estimated and are compared for each catalyst.