Synthesis of magnetic carbonaceous acids derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls for catalytic biodiesel production

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 7; no. 19; pp. 11403 - 11413
• Main Authors: Zhang, Fan, Tian, Xiaofei, Shah, Mazloom, Yang, Wenjing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Biodiesel; Catalysis; Catalysts; Hulls; Hulls (structures); Hydrolysates; Methyl alcohol; Synthesis (chemistry)
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/C6RA28796D

A series of magnetic carbonaceous acids (JHC- T 1 – T 2 -SO 3 H@Fe/Fe 3 O 4 ) were synthesized by the assembly of nano-Fe 3 O 4 magnetic cores (particle size < 20 nm) and carbon coatings derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls. A magnetic JHC-12-600-SO 3 H@Fe/Fe 3 O 4 catalyst with a total acid content of 2.69 mmol g −1 and a magnetic saturation of 40.3 A m 2 kg −1 was successfully prepared via a sequence of hydrothermal precipitation, pyrolytic carbonization, and finally sulfonation with H 2 SO 4 . The catalyst was directly used for the production of biodiesel from Jatropha crude oil with an acid value (AV) of 17.2 mg KOH per g, and the optimized conditions (180 °C for 7.5 h with a molar ratio of methanol/oil of 18/1 and a catalyst loading of 7.5 wt%) were determined by single-factor tests. An average biodiesel yield of 95.9% was achieved with a recovery rate of 94.3% after 5 reaction cycles in a 5 L batch reactor for testing the feasibility of the catalyst for large-scale use. This study demonstrates an alternative green approach to fully utilizing waste biomass from energy plants in the catalytic synthesis of Jatropha biodiesel with high efficiency.