Synthesis of biodiesel and acetins by transesterification reactions using novel CaSn(OH)6 heterogeneous base catalyst​

• CaSn(OH)6 is a strong solid base catalyst with stability up to 250 °C.
• Transesterification of glycerol with methyl acetate reaction was performed at room temperature using solid base catalyst.
• High biodiesel yield from transesterification of non edible oils using CaSn(OH)6.
• The catalyst performed better compared to other conventional solid base catalysts.
• Catalyst was truly heterogeneous with good reusability for 3 catalyst recycles.

Metal hydroxy stannate is explored for the first time as a solid base catalyst for transesterification reactions. The catalyst was synthesized by co-precipitation method and characterized by PXRD, SEM, EDS, TGA, surface area and FT-IR measurements. In this work, we demonstrated metal hydroxy stannate as an efficient catalyst for the synthesis of biodiesel and to convert its byproduct glycerol into acetins. Performance of the catalyst was checked with both edible oil (sunflower) and non edible oils like waste cooking oil, jatropha, honge and simarouba. CaSn(OH)6 gave high biodiesel yield with the tested oils at lower reaction temperature (65 °C). The performance of CaSn(OH)6 was better than other solid base catalysts like CaO, MgO, Mg/Al HTc and KF/CaO. Separation of biodiesel from un-reacted oil and glycerol was carried out using solvent extraction method and isolated yield of biodiesel was calculated. Conditions like temperature, amount of catalyst and mole ratio were studied for both the reactions to get optimum yield of end products. Fuel properties of synthesized biodiesel were tested and compared with international standards. Catalyst showed good thermal stability and reusability with consistent activity for both the reactions.

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