Issue 19, 2017, Issue in Progress

Synthesis of magnetic carbonaceous acids derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls for catalytic biodiesel production

Abstract

A series of magnetic carbonaceous acids (JHC-T1T2-SO3H@Fe/Fe3O4) were synthesized by the assembly of nano-Fe3O4 magnetic cores (particle size < 20 nm) and carbon coatings derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls. A magnetic JHC-12-600-SO3H@Fe/Fe3O4 catalyst with a total acid content of 2.69 mmol g−1 and a magnetic saturation of 40.3 A m2 kg−1 was successfully prepared via a sequence of hydrothermal precipitation, pyrolytic carbonization, and finally sulfonation with H2SO4. The catalyst was directly used for the production of biodiesel from Jatropha crude oil with an acid value (AV) of 17.2 mg KOH per g, and the optimized conditions (180 °C for 7.5 h with a molar ratio of methanol/oil of 18/1 and a catalyst loading of 7.5 wt%) were determined by single-factor tests. An average biodiesel yield of 95.9% was achieved with a recovery rate of 94.3% after 5 reaction cycles in a 5 L batch reactor for testing the feasibility of the catalyst for large-scale use. This study demonstrates an alternative green approach to fully utilizing waste biomass from energy plants in the catalytic synthesis of Jatropha biodiesel with high efficiency.

Graphical abstract: Synthesis of magnetic carbonaceous acids derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls for catalytic biodiesel production

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Dec 2016
Accepted
31 Jan 2017
First published
14 Feb 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 11403-11413

Synthesis of magnetic carbonaceous acids derived from hydrolysates of Jatropha hulls for catalytic biodiesel production

F. Zhang, X. Tian, M. Shah and W. Yang, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 11403 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA28796D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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