Affiliations 

  • 1 School of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
Bioresour Technol, 2012 May;111:175-9.
PMID: 22405756 DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2012.01.177

Abstract

Methyl esters were synthesized from crude karanj oil (CKO) by single step esterification with methanol using sulfuric acid (H(2)SO(4)) and phosphoric acid (H(3)PO(4)) as catalysts in a homogeneous batch process. H(3)PO(4) was less active than H(2)SO(4) during the process as it presented very low ester yields (<20%) for the various molar ratios of fatty acid to alcohol studied. With H(2)SO(4) as catalyst, the yield was as high as 89.8% at 65°C after 5h. The fatty acids profile of the oil (palmitic acid: ≈ 12%; stearic acid: ≈ 8%; oleic acid: ≈ 52% and linolenic acid of 17%) and the different reactivities of the acids were responsible for the observed differences in conversion to methyl esters. The findings attained with this study might contribute to the economic utilization of a non-edible feedstock.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.