Production of esters based on waste vegetable oils

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study of the main characteristics of sunflower and waste sunflower oil. It is revealed that one of the main methods of their processing is esterification and transesterification with the formation of carboxylic acid esters. It is shown that the use of the two-stage method of esterification with ethyl alcohol leads to an increase in the yield of esters with improved physical properties. It was revealed that when applying the two-stage method in the presence of H2SO4 and KOH catalysts, the yield of esters from the initial sunflower oil is 94%, whereas for used oil this indicator reaches 93%, which indicates the feasibility of using the used oils as raw materials to obtain based on it higher fatty alcohols. It has been experimentally proven that the ethanol: oil ratio of 9: 1, respectively, is most optimal for producing an ester. The esterification reaction was also shown to occur at room temperature, however, with an increase in temperature to 50 ° C, after 60 minutes the yield of ester reached more than 70%, and at a temperature of 75 °C it reached its maximum.