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  • Sustainable production of alkyl esters via thermal process in the presence of carbon black.

Sustainable production of alkyl esters via thermal process in the presence of carbon black.

Environmental research (2020-02-07)
Eilhann E Kwon, Jong-Min Jung, Hyung Ju Kim, Jechan Lee
ABSTRACT

In this study, it is introduced a sustainable synthetic route of alkyl esters, considered value-added industrial chemicals and fuels, from volatile fatty acids (VFAs) that can potentially be generated from organic waste. In the presence of a porous carbon material, the thermally induced reaction could be conducted under an initial pressure of 1 atm. Even though the reaction was finished within <10 s, they gave a high yield of target products: the conversion of six VFAs into their corresponding methyl esters which can be further converted into gasoline alternatives with >90 wt% yields. The carbon black showed better performance for both reactions than other commercially available porous material such as silica. This work suggests that carbon is a good option of being used as a porous material for thermal esterification to produce renewable alternative chemicals from waste-derived feedstocks.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

Sigma-Aldrich
Isovaleric acid, natural, ≥98%, FG
Supelco
Silica gel, high-purity grade (Davisil Grade 635), pore size 60 Å, 60-100 mesh
Sigma-Aldrich
Valeric acid, natural, ≥98%, FG