(2020) Environmental Research_Sustainable production of alkyl esters via thermal process in the presence of carbon black

Kwon E.E., Jung J.-M., Kim H.J., Lee J.

(Academic Press Inc.) Environmental Research ISSN: 139351 Vol.183 Issue. Article No.109199 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109199

In this study, it is introduced a sustainable synthetic route of alkyl esters, considered value-added industrial chemicals and fuels, from volatile fatty acids (VFAs) that can potentially be generated from organic waste. In the presence of a porous carbon material, the thermally induced reaction could be conducted under an initial pressure of 1 atm. Even though the reaction was finished within <10 s, they gave a high yield of target products: the conversion of six VFAs into their corresponding methyl esters which can be further converted into gasoline alternatives with >90 wt% yields. The carbon black showed better performance for both reactions than other commercially available porous material such as silica. This work suggests that carbon is a good option of being used as a porous material for thermal esterification to produce renewable alternative chemicals from waste-derived feedstocks. © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korean Government ( Ministry of Education ) (No. 2018R1D1A1A09082841 ).