Production of Biodiesel by Esterification of Stearic Acid over Aminophosphonic Acid Resin D418

Biodiesel production has become a very intense research field because of its environmental benefits and the growing interest in finding new resources and alternatives for conventional fuels. In the present work, biodiesel production from the esterification of the free fatty acid stearic acid with ethanol over aminophosphonic acid resin D418 was studied. The effects of experimental factors such as the amount of D418, reaction temperature, and molar ratio of ethanol to stearic acid on the conversion ratio were evaluated. Process optimization using response surface methodology (RSM) was performed, and the interactions between the operating variables were elucidated. The optimum values for maximum esterification percentage were obtained by using a Box-Behnken center-united design with a minimum of experimental work. Moreover, the kinetics of the esterification catalyzed by D418 was studied, and the pseudohomogeneous (PH) model was used to simulate the experimental data.