Preparation, characterization and evaluation of x-MoO3/Al-SBA-15 catalysts for biodiesel production

Biodiesel is an alternative source of renewable energy that can be produced by a transesterification of vegetable oils. Mesoporous molecular sieves, such as SBA-15, due to high surface area and thermal stability are promising precursors for heterogeneous catalysts in the transesterification reaction. In this work, Al-SBA-15 precursor was obtained by direct hydrothermal synthesis, impregnated with different MoO₃ contents (5, 10 and 15 wt%) by the pore saturation method, and evaluated as heterogeneous catalyst in the production of biodiesel from a transesterification of soybean oil with methanol. Al-SBA-15 precursor as well as MoO₃/Al-SBA-15 catalyst were characterized for its structural characteristic by X-ray diffraction, textural characteristic by N₂ adsorption analysis, and thermal stability by thermogravimetric analysis. An experimental planning 2² + 3 CtPt was used to evaluate the influence of MoO₃ content and reaction time on biodiesel yield from soybean oil and methanol. The biodiesel content in the final product was obtained by gas chromatography. An average biodiesel yield of 96% was obtained with the catalyst 10%MoO₃/Al-SBA-15 under the following reaction conditions: 20:1 methanol/soybean oil molar ratio, and 3 wt% of catalyst loading at 150 °C in 3 h. After five consecutive reaction cycles, the biodiesel yield decreased by about 34%. The density and acidity of the biodiesel produced are within the specified values for commercialization according to international standards.