Heterogeneous and efficient transesterification of Jatropha curcas L. seed oil to produce biodiesel catalysed by nano-sized SO(4)(2−)/TiO(2)

Developing high-efficiency hetero-catalysts for transesterification reaction is of great importance in the production of biodiesel from Jatropha curcas L. seed oil (JO). Here, we synthesized a series of sulfated TiO(2) by treating with varying H(2)SO(4) concentration (SO(4)(2−)/TiO(2)) and TiO(2) catalysts and applied to the transesterification of JO. Furthermore, these heterostructures were characterized by many characterization methods including XRD, FT-IR, N(2)-adsorption, SEM, TEM, TG, py-IR and NH(3)-TPD, and their catalytic performance was investigated under various operating conditions. The results reveal that both the Brønsted and Lewis acid sites are presented in the SO(4)(2−)/TiO(2) catalysts, while only Lewis-type sites are observed in the TiO(2) catalyst. And the acid intensity, surface area and mesoporous volume of catalysts are improved obviously after treating TiO(2) with sulfuric acid. Then the SO(4)(2−)/TiO(2) catalysts exhibit much higher catalytic activity than TiO(2) catalyst, which is attributed to the larger surface area and mesoporous volume and stronger acidity. Furthermore, the reusability behaviour of 1.5 SO(4)(2−)/TiO(2) catalyst in the transesterification of JO was also studied.