Sim MS  Lee SH  Kim YB  Ku HJ  Woo JG  Joshi R  Jeon JK

Vol. 27,  No. 2, pp. 198-204, Jun.  2021
10.7464/ksct.2021.27.2.198

Nepalese jatropha oil Esterification Amberlyst-15 Transesterification Dolomite bead catalyst

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This study focused on a two-step process using heterogeneous catalysts to produce biodiesel using Nepalese jatropha oil as a raw material. As a first step, the effect of the repetitive regeneration number of Amberlyst-15 on the esterification reaction of FFA in jatropha oil was investigated. Second, the possibility of a transesterification reaction scale-up using a dolomite bead catalyst was tested. Using 120 kg of jatropha seeds from Nepal, 30 L (27 kg) of jatropha oil was obtained, and the jatropha oil yield from the seeds was about 25.0 wt%. The acid value and FFA content of jatropha oil were measured to be 11.3 mgKOH g-1 and 5.65%, respectively. As a result of the esterification reaction of jatropha oil using the Amberlyst-15 catalyst in the form of beads, the acid value of the reaction product could be lowered to 0.26 mgKOH g-1 when the fresh Amberlyst-15 catalyst was used. As the regeneration of the Amberlyst-15 catalyst is repeated, the catalyst has been deactivated, and the esterification reaction performance has deteriorated. The cause of the deactivation seems to be due to the catalyst being broken and impurities being deposited. It was confirmed that the Amberlyst-15 catalyst could be reused up to 5 times for the esterification reaction of jatropha oil. In the second step, the transesterification reaction, a dolomite catalyst, was mass-produced and used in the form of beads. By transesterifying the pretreated jatropha oil in a spinning catalyst basket reactor equipped with 90 g of dolomite bead catalyst, 89.1 wt% of biodiesel yield was obtained in 2 hours after the start of the reaction, which was similar to the transesterification of soybean oil under the same conditions.