Study on the methanolysis of natural lecithin catalyzed by quaternary ammonium base resin

In this work, a new approach was proposed to get glycerophosphocholine (GPC) from natural soybean lecithin catalyzed by the quaternary ammonium base resin made in our laboratory. The results showed that the resin has the potential for preparing GPC under mild conditions, and the catalyst could be easily separated and recycled with stable catalytic activity. The effects of different parameters on the rate of reaction verified that the transesterification was intrinsically kinetically controlled and there were no external and internal mass transfer resistance. The results showed that when the reaction was carried out with agitation speed of 675 rpm, reaction temperature of 50 °C, catalyst loading of 80 g L−1, the lecithin conversion was 98 % after 3.5 h. A kinetic model was developed and the experimental data fitted it well, and the mechanism of methanolysis of natural lecithin catalyzed by resin was proposed.