The influence of fatty acid composition on the kinetics of the vegetable oil methanolysis reaction

The base-catalyzed methanolysis of roadside pennycress, olive, melon, grapeseed, hempseed, sunflower, and plum kernel oils was performed in the presence of KOH (1% to the oil weight) at the temperature of 60° C and the methanol/oil molar ratio of 6:1. The aim of this work was to reveal the influence of the fatty acid composition of the oils on the kinetics of these methanolysis reactions. The irreversible pseudo-first-order reaction was used for modeling the kinetics of the methanolysis reactions, and the reaction rate constant was correlated with the content of unsaturated fatty acids in the oil. The value of the reaction rate constant increases linearly with increasing the unsaturated fatty acids content in the oil. The applicability and reliability of the model were confirmed by high values of the coefficient of determination and low values of the mean relative percentage deviation between the calculated and experimental triacylglycerols conversion degree.