Esterification of High Concentration Free Fatty Acid in Rice Bran Oil

Characteristics of the esterification reaction between free fatty acid in rice bran oil and methanol was investigated in the presence of catalysts, such as PTS(p-toluene sulfonic acid), Amberlyst 15 dry and SCX(silica gel based strong cation exchange resin). While reaction temperature was kept constant at $65^{\circ}C$, initial feed content of free fatty acid was varied from 100% to 1% by addition of pure free fatty acid which was previously made from rice bran oil. Also, the effect of mole ratio of methanol to fatty acid on the final conversion was examined. When esterification of pure free fatty acid was catalyzed by several acids, final conversions were increased in order of Amberlyst 15 dry, SCX and PTS. Using PTS catalyst, initially the reaction proceeded in homogeneous 2nd oder reaction mechanism. However, phase of reaction mixture changed from homogeneous to heterogeneous along the reaction time and then reaction rate was retarded by mass transfer resistance of methanol. Final conversion of free fatty acid in reaction mixture was depended on initial feed content of free fatty acid, and had maximum value at 30% of initial feed free fatty acid content for all kinds of catalysts used. And the final conversion was increased with mole ratio of methanol by the improvement of reaction rate. When initial feed free fatty acid content below 10% and the reaction was catalyzed by PTS, concentration of free fatty acid in reaction mixture was increased in the middle of reaction time by hydrolysis of triglyceride in reaction mixture. Also, if silica gel was added into the reaction mixture which had initial feed free fatty acid content below 50%, final conversion was increased by the adsorption of moisture produced. The SCX catalyst made the esterification reaction of free fatty acid to progress like in case of PTS catalyst. However, when initial feed free fatty acid content below 10%, concentration of free fatty acid in. reaction mixture was decreased monotonically and not increased in the middle of reaction time on the contrary to the case of PTS. Thus, SCX catalyst accomplished more high value of final conversion than PTS catalyst for the initial feed fatty acid content range from 50% to 5% In case of initial feed free fatty acid content of 1% and mole ratio of methanol was 2, concentration of free fatty acid in reaction mixture increased over the initial feed free fatty acid content for all kind of catalysts used. Although SCX catalyst was added into reaction mixture which had 1% of initial feed fatty acid content, final conversion was hardly raised by mole ratio of methanol.

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