Kinetic Study and Simulation of Oleic Acid Esterification over Prepared NaY Zeolite Catalyst

• Main Authors: Ammar S. Abbas, Rowaida N. Abbas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Baghdad/College of Engineering 2013-12-01
• Series: Iraqi Journal of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
• Subjects: Oleic acid, Esterification, Kinetic study, Simulation, heterogeneous catalyst, zeolite.
• Online Access: http://ijcpe.uobaghdad.edu.iq/index.php/ijcpe/article/view/324

Esterification considers the most important reaction in biodiesel production. In this study, oleic acid was used as a suggested feedstock in order to study and simulate production of biodiesel. The batch esterification reaction of oleic acid was carried out at various operating conditions; temperature from 40 to 70 °C, ethanol to oleic acid molar ratio from 3/1 and 6/1 and a reaction time up to 180 min. The catalyst used was prepared NaY zeolite, which is added to the reaction mixture as 2, 5 and 10 wt.% of oleic acid. The results show that the optimum conditions, gives 0.81 conversion of oleic acid, were 6/1 molar ratio of ethanol/oleic acid, 5 wt.% NaY relative to initial oleic acid, 70°C and 60 minutes. The activation energy of the suggested model was 42692 J/mole for forward reaction and 17218 J/mole for backward reaction.