Transesterification of soybean oil and evaluating the combustibilities and heats of combustion of various soy-based diesels

IEC 152

Andrew R. Bernard, Kala M. Smith, Emily C. Bethart, Ashley A. Tharpe, and S.K. Airee. Department of Chemistry, The University of Tennessee at Martin, Martin, TN 38238
The Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society chapter at The University of Tennessee at Martin received an Innovative Activities Grant to promote the use of the renewable resource, soybeans, for use in solvents, fuels, and other commercial products. In conjunction with this IAG project, the procedures listed in the ACS publication "Introduction to Green Chemistry" were adopted with modifications for preparation and testing of biodiesel derived from soybean oil. Besides using methanol as listed in the manual, ethanol, isopropanol and butanol were used. Heats of combustion of various esters will also be reported. The combustibilities and the heats of combustion of commercially available diesel and biodiesels will be compared to the ones prepared here.