Esterification reaction of oleic acid catalyzed by modified mesoporous silica SBA-15

Abstract

The esterification reaction of oleic acid with methanol practically does not occur at the temperature of most current industrial processes. If you raise the temperature, significant conversion occurs only above 200°C and after several hours. For the above reasons, all of today's industrial oleic acid esterification technologies are based on catalyzed esterification. Catalysts based on silicates are often used as catalysts in the mentioned reactions because they are cheap, easy to synthesize, insoluble in most organic solvents, and recyclable. In this work, modified mesopo-rous silica SBA-15 was used, which is suitable for a wide range of organic reactions. The effect of the amount of this catalyst on the yield of the esterification reaction was studied. It has been shown that with an increase in the amount of catalyst, the degree of conversion, i.e. the yield of methyl oleate, increases.