Transesterification of canola oil in mixed methanol/ethanol system and use of esters as lubricity additive [An article from: Bioresource Technology]

This digital document is a journal article from Bioresource Technology, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Transesterification of canola oil was carried out with methanol, ethanol, and various mixtures of methanol/ethanol, keeping the molar ratio of oil to alcohol 1:6 and using KOH as a catalyst. Mixtures of alcohol increased the rate of transesterification reaction and produced methyl as well as ethyl esters. The increased rate was result of better solubility of oil in reaction mixture due to better solvent properties of ethanol than methanol and equilibrium due to methanol. With 3:3 molar ratio of methanol to ethanol {MEE (3:3)} the amount of ethyl ester formed was 50% that of methyl ester. Properties (acid value, viscosity, density) of all esters including mixed esters were within the limits of ASTM standards. Lubricities of these esters are in the order: ethyl ester>methyl ethyl ester>methyl ester.