Process intensification of microwave-assisted acetylation reaction of glycerol to synthesize fuel additives using porcine pancreas lipase catalyst

Abstract

To reduce the level of greenhouse emissions, new technical advancements in the fields of biofuels, wind, and solar energy are being made. The most widely used biofuel is biodiesel. Glycerol production has grown as a result of increased biodiesel production. Glycerol may be processed to create valuable chemicals. In this research, a glycerol acetylation reaction with acetic acid was carried out to synthesize glycerol acetate using an enzyme lipase catalyst extracted from porcine pancreas (PPL). Experiments were carried out to analyze the effect of various solvents (toluene, n-butyl alcohol, tert-butyl alcohol, dichloromethane, isopropyl alcohol), power level (900 and 1200 W), and temperature (20–50 °C) on glycerol conversion. Ninety-six percent of glycerol conversion was achieved for a duration of 2 h with the use of 10 mL of toluene as solvent. The kinetics of the acetylation reaction catalyzed by PPL in a microwave reactor was also studied using an elementary kinetic law. Applying process intensification using a microwave reactor was found to be advantageous. The microwave effect in accelerating the rate of acetylation reaction at reduced temperature compared to the conventional method was observed in this study. The activation energy (E) for the acetylation reaction was found to be 18 kJ/mol.

Keywords:

• Acetylation
• glycerol
• lipase enzyme
• microwave reactor
• process intensification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by RIT seed funding (MSRIT/admin/2021/150).