Abstract Decanoic acid, found in naturally occurring coconut and palm kernel oils, and in genetically modified cuphea plant species, is gaining increasing importance as platform chemical for the development of many useful products. Although perceived to be an important starting molecule for production of biodiesel, the process of production of and fuel properties of its ethyl ester have never been explored before. In this article, we have reported about laboratory-based studies for esterification of decanoic acid with ethanol in presence of solid acid catalysts. Activation energy of the esterification reaction was found to be 38.5 KJ/mol. The studies showed that the conversion of decanoic acid to its ethyl ester can be performed at optimal temperature 348 K in presence of solid acid catalyst. We have also investigated salient fuel properties of ethyl decanoate and its several blends with conventional fossil-derived diesel and found that use of ethyl decanoate with conventional diesel could become economically attractive.

中文翻译：

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固体酸催化剂负载癸酸乙酯的合成及燃料性能

摘要 癸酸存在于天然存在的椰子油和棕榈仁油以及转基因茶杯植物物种中，作为开发许多有用产品的平台化学品，其重要性日益增加。虽然被认为是生产生物柴油的重要起始分子，但其乙酯的生产过程和燃料特性以前从未被探索过。在本文中，我们报道了在固体酸催化剂存在下癸酸与乙醇酯化的实验室研究。发现酯化反应的活化能为38.5 KJ/mol。研究表明，在固体酸催化剂存在下，癸酸转化为乙酯的最佳温度为 348 K。