Kinetic study of biodiesel production using choline hydroxide as catalyst

The present work aims to study the use of choline hydroxide (ChOH) ionic liquid (IL) as a potentially reusable catalyst for the production of biodiesel. A kinetic study was carried out for the transesterification of a previously characterized vegetable oil sample with methanol, under the following fraction conditions: 2 wt.% catalyst dosage, 1:10 oil/methanol molar ratio, reaction time of 10, 20, 30, 45, 60 and 120 minutes, and reaction temperature values of 35 45 55 and 65ºC. The transesterification reaction with ChOH provided a 95.7% conversion value, expressed in FAME content, using a time reaction of 30 min and a temperature reaction of 65ºC. The experimental kinetic study results demonstrated that a first order model represents for all the studied temperatures, the model that best fits the experimental results. The reaction rate constant was estimated as 0.1182 min-1 for 65ºC and an activation energy of 13.64 kJ/mol