The technology for transesterification reactions between methyl esters and alcohols is well established by using classical homogeneous alkaline catalysts, which provide high conversion of methyl esters to specialty or nonindigenous esters. However, in certain products where the purity of the esters is of concern, the removal of homogeneous catalysts after the completion of the reaction is a challenge in terms of production cost and water footprint. Therefore, a study to investigate the potential of heterogeneous catalysts was conducted on reactions between methyl palmitate and triethanolamine. The degree of basicity and active surface area of calcium oxide (CaO), zinc oxide (ZnO), and magnesium oxide (MgO) were first characterized by using temperature‐programmed desorption (TPD‐CO₂) and Brunauere–Emmett–Teller (BET), respectively. Among the metal oxides investigated, the CaO catalyst showed the best catalytic activity toward the transesterification process as it gave the highest conversion of methyl palmitate and yielded fatty esteramine compositions similar to the conventional homogeneous catalyst. The optimum transesterification condition by using the CaO catalyst utilized a lower vacuum system of approximately 200 mbar, which could minimize a considerable amount of energy consumption. Furthermore, low CaO dosage of 0.1% was able to give a conversion of 94.5% methyl ester and formed esteramine at 170 °C for 2 h. Therefore, the production of esterquats from esteramine may become more economically feasible through the methyl ester route by using the CaO catalyst, which can be recycled three times.

中文翻译：

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氧化钙催化棕榈基棕榈酸甲酯酯交换成酯胺

通过使用经典的均相碱性催化剂，可以实现甲酯与醇之间酯交换反应的技术，该技术可将甲酯高转化为特种或非本土酯。然而，在某些关注酯纯度的产品中，在反应完成后除去均相催化剂是生产成本和水足迹方面的挑战。因此，对棕榈酸甲酯和三乙醇胺之间的反应进行了研究多相催化剂潜力的研究。氧化钙（CaO），氧化锌（ZnO）和氧化镁（MgO）的碱度和活性表面积首先通过程序升温脱附（TPD-CO ₂）和Brunauere–Emmett–Teller（BET）。在所研究的金属氧化物中，CaO催化剂对酯交换反应表现出最佳的催化活性，因为它可提供最高的棕榈酸甲酯转化率，并产生类似于常规均相催化剂的脂肪酯胺组合物。通过使用CaO催化剂的最佳酯交换条件利用了大约200 mbar的较低真空系统，这可以最大程度地减少能源消耗。此外，0.1％的低CaO剂量能够在94°C下2h转化为94.5％的甲酯并形成酯胺。因此，通过使用CaO催化剂通过甲酯路线通过酯胺生产酯季铵盐可能在经济上更加可行，该CaO催化剂可以循环使用三次。