Issue 19, 2017

Acidic/amphiphilic silica nanoparticles: new eco-friendly Pickering interfacial catalysis for biodiesel production

Abstract

Silica nanoparticles have been designed by surface modification to stabilize solventless catalytic Pickering emulsions for effective biodiesel production. With respect to this, and based on full physicochemical characterization of both nanoparticles and emulsions, an optimum balance between inert (i.e., alkyl chains) and active (i.e., sulfonic acids) surface functional groups to obtain amphiphilic and catalytic properties was achieved with C18-SiO2-SO3H (C18 : SO3H molar ratio = 54 : 46 with a degree of grafting of 48%). Under optimal conditions, biphasic transesterification of several vegetable oils with methanol in the presence of these modified silica catalysts proceeds at competitive rates: the conversion of triglycerides is higher than 92% at 90 °C after 12 h. In addition, the catalytic system was not deactivated by the presence of free fatty acids in the crude feedstock and the nanoparticles could be repeatedly used at least 5 times without any loss of activity.

Graphical abstract: Acidic/amphiphilic silica nanoparticles: new eco-friendly Pickering interfacial catalysis for biodiesel production

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Jun 2017
Accepted
16 Aug 2017
First published
16 Aug 2017

Green Chem., 2017,19, 4552-4562

Acidic/amphiphilic silica nanoparticles: new eco-friendly Pickering interfacial catalysis for biodiesel production

B. Yang, L. Leclercq, J. Clacens and V. Nardello-Rataj, Green Chem., 2017, 19, 4552 DOI: 10.1039/C7GC01910F

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