The depletion of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal, increased oil prices and the increasing negative impacts of climate change have encouraged experts from industry and science to search for biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels. Today, bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas are more promising and environmentally friendly alternatives for petrol, diesel fuel and natural gas. Biodiesel is basically produced by transesterification of animal fats or vegetable oils with biocatalysts (enzymes), acidic or basic catalysts, with glycerol being the main by-product of the process. The steadily growing biodiesel market has created a significant surplus of glycerol production, which has led to a simultaneous drop in its price. Glycerol thus became a highly available and cheap chemical, which is why many new uses of glycerol have been proposed in recent years. Glycerol is a versatile raw material as it is non-toxic, edible, and biodegradable, it can be used as a raw material to produce valuable derivates or it can be directly converted into suitable chemicals. One of the chemicals that can be obtained from glycerol is glycidol, which is an important intermediate for the preparation of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and bioactive compounds.
In this research work, I focused on the synthesis of stable catalysts for the gas-phase preparation of glycidol from glycerol. The glycidol preparation process was carried out in one step in an industrial continuous flow packed bed reactor under atmospheric pressure. Stable catalysts have several important properties that make them efficient and reliable for long-term use in various chemical processes, some of these being stability, high activity, selectivity, possibility of regeneration, long life span and economy. I synthesized eleven different catalysts, six of which contained different weight fractions of cesium. After testing all six catalysts based on the results obtained, the catalyst 15%Cs/ZSM-5(1500) has the optimal composition. The other five catalysts contained different weight fractions of rubidium, and here the obtained data showed that the catalyst with an optimal composition is 10%Rb/ZSM-5(1500). By changing the reaction conditions such as temperature, glycerol concentration, glycerol flow and nitrogen flow, I searched for the optimal reaction conditions of these two catalysts for the glycidol preparation process. I also checked their stability and regeneration success after their deactivation.
|