Investigation of reaction parameters, kinetics and mechanism of oleic acid esterification with methanol by using Amberlyst 46 as a catalyst

• Amberlyst 46 is a very active catalyst for esterification of oleic acid.
• The conversion almost kept constant after 10 reaction cycles.
• Amberlyst 46 proved excellent performance and reusability.
• Results support the validity of surface reaction rate limiting Eley–Rideal mechanism.
• Reaction mechanism based on the reaction between adsorbed methanol and oleic acid

In this study, the effect of reaction parameters such as molar ratio of methanol to oleic acid, catalyst amount, reaction temperature and reaction time was investigated for esterification of oleic acid with methanol in the presence of Amberlyst 46. The conversion of 98.6% was obtained when the reaction was performed at 3:1 molar ratio of methanol to oleic acid, reaction temperature of 100 °C, catalyst amount of 15% and 2 h reaction time. The conversions with reused catalyst varied in the range of 96.8% to 98.3%. After the catalyst was reused for ten times under the same reaction conditions negligible catalytic activity loss (< 2%) was observed. The pseudo-homogeneous and Eley–Rideal models were used to correlate experimental data. The results support the validity of Eley–Rideal mechanism where the surface reaction was assumed as the rate limiting step.

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