Author(s)

Zhiping Wang, Shitao Yu^*

College of Chemical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.

β/Al-MCM-41 molecular sieve was synthesized and used to catalyze the esterification of oleic acid with short chain alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and isobutanol to obtain biodiesel. The results indicated that β/Al-MCM-41 exhibited the excellent catalytic activity and stability, which was obviously superior to traditional Al-MCM-41. The relationship between acidity and catalytic activity was in detail examined by NH₃-TPD and Py-FTIR. Moreover, the kinetics of esterification of oleic acid with methanol showed that the average reaction order n was 1.97 and that activation energy was 50.01 kJ/mol.

Kinetics, Esterification, Molecular Sieve, β/Al-MCM-41

Wang, Z. and Yu, S. (2016) Synthesis of High-Stability Acidic β/Al-MCM-41 and the Catalytic Performance for the Esterification of Oleic Acid. Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science, 6, 305-315. doi: 10.4236/aces.2016.64031.