Lauma Apšeniece

Hydrotreating of wheat straw in toluene and ethanol.

In the present work, wheat straw was hydroliquefied at a temperature of 300°C for 4h in ethanol or toluene in order to obtain bio-components which are useful for fuel purposes. The experiments were performed in a 100mL batch reactor under hydrogen pressure of 70 bar. Typically, 2g of straw and 0.1g of catalyst (66%Ni/SiO2-Al2O3) were dispersed in 15 g of solvent. The main compounds of the oil produced during the liquefaction of hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin of wheat straw in both solvents are: tetrahydrofuran-2-methanol, 1,2-butanediol and butyrolactone. Besides the mentioned compounds, ethanol favoured the decomposition of bigger molecules to short-chain alcohols such as 1-butanol, 1,2-propanediol and 1,2-ethanediol. Toluene contributes to the production of furans and other cyclic compounds. The light fractions distilled together with the solvent also contain the following: 1-propanol, 2-methyl-cyclopentanone, acetic acid and ethyl acetate.

Optimization of rapeseed oil fatty acid esterification with methanol in the presence of sulfuric acid

Abstract The interest in biodiesel production from low cost feedstocks is still increasing. Such feedstocks usually contain large amounts of free fatty acids, which make the currently employed base catalysts inefficient, thereby promoting the use of acid catalysts. Due to the high activity and low cost, sulfuric acid could become the most widely used acid catalyst for biodiesel production. Research undertaken so far using sulfuric acid for esterifi cation of fatty acids has shown that the products obtained fail to meet the requirements of the standard EN 14214. This paper describes a systematic study of rapeseed oil fatty acids esterification in order to obtain a product complying with the standard EN 14214. The influence of sulfuric acid concentrations (0.1-3.0%), methanol molar ratios (1:1-20:1) and reaction time (0-360 min) was evaluated. Finally, a two-stage esterification process was developed, where in optimal conditions esterification yield of 97.8% and ester content of 99.6% were achieved.