Kinetics of Heterogeneous Biodiesel Synthesis Using Supported ZnO as Catalyst

A heterogeneous catalyst, ZnO supported on alumina/silica, was synthesized by the sol-gel method. The prepared catalysts were employed for methanolysis of sunflower oil. Effects of various supports as well as calcination temperature were evaluated following the kinetics of the reaction. Simple first-order irreversible and reversible reaction models were applied to determine the reaction rate constant. The results proved that under optimized conditions the catalyst exhibited good activity in the methanolysis of sunflower oil and the kinetics of the methanolysis process could be expressed by the first-order reversible reaction model. For other catalysts with lower activity, the first-order irreversible reaction model could be successfully applied to describe well the process kinetics.