Research Of Preparation And Cold Flow Properties Of Biodiesel From Soybean Oil

With the energy consumption increasing and the shrinking storage of fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, it’s urgent for us to seek out sustainable new energy resources. Biodiesel will become the new alternative because of its environmental-friendly and renewable features.Transesterification by catalysis is one of the most effective ways to synthesize biodiesel. Among those catalysts, the solid base catalyst with high reactivity, easy separation, and less environmental pollution,is a high-efficient catalyst. In this paper,an efficient snail/kaolin solid base catalyst was prepared by roasting inexpensive and convenient snail shell and kaolin at 800℃, grinding and mixing according to the proportion of 4:1, and finally impregnating by KBr solution. The catalyst, after being activated at 500℃, was used for catalyzing the transesterification reaction of soybean oil and methanol for biodiesel. When the proportion of methanol to soybean oil was 6:1, reaction time was 2 h, and the reaction temperature was 65℃,the biodiesel productivity could reach as high as 98.5%. At the same time, the prepared snail shell/kaolin catalyst showed good performance in the stability and repeatability tests.Furthermore, the composition and content of the prepared biodiesel, especially the biodiesel cold flow properties were analyzed. The performance of the prepared soybean biodiesel was improved efficiently through adding the low temperature flow improver of methy acetoacetate.And then, a binary polymer cold flow improver was synthesized and analyzed. The influence and mechanism of polymer improver exerted on soybean biodiesel was studied systematic. With easy synthesis method,high catalytic activity and good reusability,the catalyst,which is environment-friendly,inexpensive,has a promising perspective in biodiesel industry. It is also significant for biodiesel industries to develop cheap and efficient biodiesel cold flow improver.