OPTIMISATION OF REACTION PARAMETERS FOR THE SYNTHESIS OF SOLKETAL LEVULINATE AS POTENTIAL BIODIESEL ADDITIVE

Abstract

Glycerol is a major by-product of biodiesel production and finding new uses for glycerol is crucial to ensure the sustainability and continuance of the biodiesel industry. Thus, the transformation of glycerol into ketal compounds that have potential as additive to improve biodiesel properties, could be an option to provide an outlet for increasing glycerol stock. This study aims to optimise the transesterification reaction to afford solketal levulinate ester (SoLE) in highest yield by reacting solketal with methyl levulinate (ML). The reaction parameters varied are type of base catalyst, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, reaction time and reactants molar ratio. Under optimised reaction conditions: 1.5% sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) catalyst loading, reaction temperature of 140°C, reaction time of 4 hr and molar ratio of 3:1 (solketal:ML), as high as 74.5% yield and 95.0% purity of SoLE was obtained.