Biodiesel surrogates: Achieving performance demands

Synthesis of surrogate molecules is particularly useful for generating in sight of structural-activity relationships, understanding processes and improving the performance. In order to improve upon the physico-chemical properties of biodiesel, methyl, ethyl, isopropyl and n-butyl esters of β-branched fatty acid have been synthesized, initiating from β-branched alcohols. β-Branched alcohols upon oxidation gave corresponding acids, which were converted to their esters. The synthesized esters have substantially better oxidative stability, exhibited by Rancimat oxidation induction period of more than 24 h. The cloud point of synthesized esters is <−36 °C, pour point is <−42 °C and CFPP is <−21 °C, which is substantially better than fatty acid methyl esters. Besides achieving the objective of better oxidative stability and improved low temperature properties, the synthesized surrogate esters have viscosity in the range of 4.2–4.6 cSt at 40 °C, meeting the international diesel and biodiesel standards. The cetane number of synthesized esters is 62–69, which is much better than diesel and biodiesel. The blends of the synthesized esters in diesel at 5% and 10% meet Indian standards of diesel.