Heterogeneous and efficient transesterification of Jatropha curcas L. seed oil to produce biodiesel catalysed by nano-sized SO42−/TiO2

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 TiO2 by treating with varying H2SO4 concentration (SO42−/TiO2) and TiO2 catalysts and applied to the transesterification of JO. Furthermore, these heterostructures were characterized by many characterization methods including XRD, FT-IR, N2-adsorption, SEM, TEM, TG, py-IR and NH3-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 SO42−/TiO2 catalysts, while only Lewis-type sites are observed in the TiO2 catalyst. And the acid intensity, surface area and mesoporous volume of catalysts are improved obviously after treating TiO2 with sulfuric acid. Then the SO42−/TiO2 catalysts exhibit much higher catalytic activity than TiO2 catalyst, which is attributed to the larger surface area and mesoporous volume and stronger acidity. Furthermore, the reusability behaviour of 1.5 SO42−/TiO2 catalyst in the transesterification of JO was also studied.