ENHANCED IN-SITU TRANSESTERIFICATION OF JATROPHA CURCAS IN THE PRESENCE OF ALKALINEPHASE TRANSFER CATALYST

Raw material and processing costs are adversely affecting the economic viability of
biodiesel technology. In-situ transesterification of non edible oil seed particles such as
jatropha curcas can minimize the costs of feedstock, oil extraction and purification;
slow conversion rates due to limited solubility of oil in methanol can be enhancedby
using phase transfer catalysts; microwave pretreatment of seeds can make oil
molecules more reactive. In the present work, these three concepts were utilized
together to investigate in-situ transesterification of microwave pretreated jatropha
curcas seed particles in the presence of alkaline phase transfer catalysts (PTC) such
as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTMAB), benzyltrimethylammonium
hydroxide (BTMAOH) and crown ether (CE); BTMAOH was observed to be better
than CTMAB and CE. It was observed that use of alkaline BTMAOH as a PTC and
microwave heat pretreatment of jatropha curcas seed particles have substantially
increased the reaction rate of in-situ transesterification reaction.