Esterification of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Using Ammonium Ferric Sulfate-Calcium Silicate as a Heterogeneous Acid Cata
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Esterification of Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Using Ammonium Ferric Sulfate-Calcium Silicate as a Heterogeneous Acid Catalyst Shangeetha Ganesan 1 & Sivajothi Nadarajah 1
&
Nurain Nabilah Shamsudin 1 & Melati Khairuddean 1 & Geok Bee Teh 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) is a waste from refining crude palm oil, and it is a cheap low-quality feedstock due to its high free fatty acid (FFA) content. Esterification process is necessary to lower the level of FFA in PFAD. The physical and chemical properties of PFAD were studied and compared with previously reported studies and it was found that most of the PFAD parameters showed comparable values or were within the expected range. GC-MS analysis confirmed that the fatty acid in PFAD is 44.99% palmitic acid and 38.15% oleic acid. The optimized reaction conditions obtained for the esterification of PFAD by using ammonium ferric sulfate-calcium silicate (AFS-CS) as heterogeneous acid catalyst were 2-h reaction time, 12 wt% of AFS-CS catalyst amount and 15:1 methanol to PFAD molar ratio at 65 °C to produce maximum methyl esters conversion of 80%. The rate of leaching at active sites on the catalyst was very high; hence, the catalyst is not suitable to be reused. Keywords Free fatty acid . Methyl ester . Optimization . Active sites . Palmitic acid . Oleic acid
Introduction Over the past 10 years, research for a cleaner environment and worldwide energy security has caused a huge increase in the production and utilization of biofuels, particularly as a substitute for transport fuels. Biodiesel production has drawn great Highlights • Synthesis of ammonium ferric sulfate-calcium silicate (AFS-CS) via the impregnation method in 2:1 mass ratio. • The physical and chemical properties of the PFAD were determined and compared with previously reported studies. • The AFS-CS catalyst was characterized via XRF, AAS, and NH3-TPD. • Esterification of PFAD with AFS-CS gave 80% methyl esters conversion at optimized operating conditions of 2-h reaction time, 15:1 methanol to PFAD molar ratio, and 12 wt% of AFS-CS catalyst. • The reusability of the catalyst was studied. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12155-020-10143-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sivajothi Nadarajah [email protected] 1
School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
2
Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology, Southern University College, Jalan Selatan Utama, Off Jalan Skudai, 81300 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
attention in recent years. Biodiesel is the main and first economic fuel to have met America’s EPA definition as a leading biofuel since it decreases ozone-depleting substance outflows by over half compared with petrol diesel [1]. The most energyefficient and easiest way to produce biodiesel is by catalytic transesterification of triglyceride with methanol to produce fa
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