Microwave assisted esterification of free fatty acid over a heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production

Biodiesel fuel is gaining significant attention in recent years because of its environmental benefits and the growing interest in finding new resources and alternatives for conventional fuels. Biodiesel production from waste cooking oil with high free fatty acids usually requires esterification step to produce fatty acid methyl/ethyl ester. In the present work, the heterogeneous catalyst aminophosphonic acid resin D418 has been successfully utilized in the energy-efficient microwave-assisted esterification reaction of fatty acid ethyl ester (FAEE) from free fatty acid (FFA) stearic acid with short-chain alcohol ethanol. Under the reaction conditions of 9 wt% D418 and 11: 1 M ratio of ethanol to stearic acid at 353 K and atmospheric pressure, more than 90% conversion of the esterification was achieved in 7 h by microwave heating, while it took about 12 h by conventional heating. Moreover, the kinetics of this esterification reaction has been studied, and the relevant values of activation energy and pre-exponential factor were obtained. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.