Title:
Study and characterization of catalysts for biodiesel synthesis

Speaker(s):
Do Trung Hieu, Hoang Quoc Hoi and Le Thanh Son

Faculty of Chemistry, VNU University of Science
19 Le Thanh Tong Street, Hanoi, Vietnam
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract:
Biofuels - include biomass, liquid fuels and biogases - have replaced a small part of fossil fuels in many countries. Biofuels have prospect of becoming main energy resources in the future instead of fossil fuels. Biodiesel is a fuel made from natural vegetable oils, animal fats, and advanced non-food alternative crops with alcohol. Using biodiesel instead of regular diesel can therefore have a huge impact on the amount of CO₂ released overall. However, materials and technologies of producing biofuels still need developing much to take place fossil fuels completely. In Vietnam, the government has approved "Project of developing biofuels up to 2015, vision up to 2025". The research has been using NaOH, KOH solution, CaO/NaOH and sulfated SO₄²--ZrO₂/SBA-15 as catalysts for the trans-esterification reation. The reaction conversions were 60 to 89% for homogenenous and 25-70% for heterogeneous catalysts. The obtained biodiesel productions meet the diesel  standard required specification as flashpoint D92, carbon residue D524, cetane number D613...