Influence of various cosolvents on the calcium oxide-catalyzed ethanolysis of sunflower oil

Abstract

Ten organic solvents (triethanolamine, diethanolamine, ethylene glycol, methyl ethyl ketone, n-hexane, triethylamine, ethylene glycol dimethyl ether, glycerol, tetrahydrofuran and dioxane) were applied as cosolvents in the CaO-catalyzed ethanolysis of sunflower oil performed in a batch stirred reactor under the following reaction conditions: temperature 70 °C, ethanol-to-oil mole ratio 12:1, initial catalyst concentration 1.374 mol·L-1 and amount of cosolvent 20 % based on the oil amount. The main goals were to assess the effect of the used cosolvents on the synthesis of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) and to select the most efficient one with respect to the final FAEE content, reaction duration and safety profile. In the absence of any cosolvent, the reaction was rather slow, providing a FAEE content of only 89.7±1.7 % after 4 h. Of the tested cosolvents, diethanolamine, triethanolamine and ethylene glycol significantly accelerated the ethanolysis reaction, whereby the last two provided a final FAEE content of 93.1±2.1 and 94.1±1.5 %, respectively, within 0.5 h. However, because of its safety profile, triethanolamine was selected as the best cosolvent for the ethanolysis of sunflower oil catalyzed by calcined CaO.