Transesterification of triglycerides in high and low quality oil feeds over an HT2 hydrotalcite catalyst

The use of a heterogeneous catalyst, in the transesterification reaction of refined and acidic cottonseed oil for the production of methyl-esters (biodiesel) has been studied. The basic Mg–Al–CO3 hydrotalcite catalyst used showed a high activity for methanolysis and esterification reactions in a refined and an acidic cottonseed oil as well as in a representative high water content animal fat feed. The experiments were performed in a temperature range between 180 and 210 °C, in a batch reactor. The methanol to vegetable oil molar ratio was 6 to 1, while the catalyst concentration was fixed at 1 wt.% of the oil mass. Non-calcined and calcined forms of the catalyst were tested. The activity of the calcined catalyst was lower than the initial activity of the non-calcined catalytic system but it appeared the same with the reused non-calcined system.