Vanadium phosphate catalysts for biodiesel production from acid industrial by-products

Biodiesel production from high acidity industrial by-products was studied using heterogeneous acid catalysts. These by-products contain 26-39% of free fatty acids, 45-66% of fatty acids methyl esters and 0.6-1.1% of water and are consequently inadequate for direct basic catalyzed transesterification. Macroporous vanadyl phosphate catalysts with V/P=1 (atomic ratio) prepared via sol-gel like technique was used as catalyst and it was possible to produce in one reaction batch a biodiesel contain 87% and 94% of FAME, depending on the by-product used as raw material. The initial FAME content in the by-products had a beneficial effect on the reactions because they act as a co-solvent, thus improving the miscibility of the reaction mixture components. The water formed during esterification process seems to hinder the esters formation, possibly due to competitive adsorption with methanol and to the promotion of the FAME hydrolysis reaction.The observed catalyst deactivation seems to be related to the reduction of vanadium species. However, spent catalysts can be regenerated, even partially, by reoxidation of the reduced vanadium species with air.