A Single Bio-based Catalyst for Bio-fuel and Bio-diesel

Abstract

Current homogeneous catalysts used for commercial biodiesel synthesis are toxic and flammable. For Feedstock, their reaction requires refined oil which is a human food and expensive. In addition, due to contamination, the main byproduct of their reaction, glycerol is not usable for sale as a high value product and is land filled or burned as waste. Furthermore, the use of these catalysts in conversion of low cost feed-stocks such as waste oil and greases is not economical because their reactions produce soaps and clean up of the soap imposes additional processing cost to the biodiesel synthesis process. On the other hand, heterogeneous catalysts under development for biodiesel synthesis are either derived from non-renewable resources, or have problems with toxicity or stability. The solid heterogeneous bio-based catalysts are based on renewable resources, non-toxic, stable, effective, and low cost and are expected to work well for conversion of low cost feed-stocks such as waste oil and grease such as yellow, brown and black grease. In addition to catalyzing biodiesel synthesis, biobased catalysts can convert cellulosic agricultural waste to biofuel via saccarification followed by fermentation. Due to the abundance of cellulosic biomass in the nature, this reaction has great significance as it will affect the availability of not only biofuel from the fermentation of glucose, but also the availability of all organic chemicals and even hydrogen fuel from biomass. Because the catalytic active site in these catalysts are chemically bound, in contrast to other similar catalysts such as naphthalene sulfonic acid, the catalytic active sites of biobased catalysts will not break down, or leach. As a result, both the biodiesel and the glycerol by product will be free of catalyst contaminants. This allows the biodiesel to be safely burned and the glycerol byproduct to be sold as value-added commodity for pharmaceutical and cosmetic uses.

Biodiesel Derive Bio-oil of Hermetia illucens Pre-pupae Catalysed by Sulphonated Biochar

“…Hence, this explains the poor catalytic performances at 600°C. Moreover, high catalyst loading effect negatively on the yield due to ether formation generated from the excess of acid [18]. Besides that, emulsifications occurred when excess of catalyst loading is applied and in the long run affects the separation between FAME and by product.…”

Lignocellulosic Materials as the Potential Source of Catalyst

“…Due to the abundance of cellulosic biomass in the nature they are usually used to produce activated carbon as the catalytic active site in these catalysts are chemically bound, as a result both the biodiesel and glycerol by-product will be free of catalysts contaminants (Emrani and Shahbazi 2012 ). For biomass derived CBSC, the body is often amorphous and owns aromatic structure.…”

Proton catalysis with active carbons and partially pyrolyzed carbonaceous materials

“…The oxidation of carbon is not the only way of introducing grafted acid groups onto their surface. Protonated surface functionalization can also be achieved by the phosphorylation of active carbon and other carbonaceous materials in the case of their heat treatment with phosphoric acid [7][8][9][10] or by the sulfonation with concentrated sulfuric acid (sulphonated carbon) [11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…In recent years, it has also been shown that the sulfonation of incompletely carbonized cellulose, starch, glucose and some polymers makes it possible to get hard carbon-based insoluble solid acids, which can potentially be uses as a replacement for the homogenous sulphuric acid catalyst [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Meanwhile, mainly for historical reasons, oxidized, sulphonated, and phosphorylated carbon were studied mainly as cation exchangers with high selectivity towards multiply charged cations [18].…”

“…In fact, homogeneous catalysts (HCl, H2SO4) are difficult to separate from the reaction system, ecologically unfriendly, and cause equipment corrosion. On this view, many articles [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] have found that carbonaceous materials specifically modified by protonic groups are the best candidates among solid acids for various acid catalyzed reactions.…”