Biodiesel is a renewable fuel with several advantages over petro-based fuels and is conventionally produced by the transesterification of triglycerides with alcohols. Chemical interesterification of triglycerides is a good alternative as compared to transesterification, as it yields a value-added compound, triacetin, as a co-product instead of the already abundant commodity, glycerol. In this work, interesterification of soybean oil was carried out with methyl acetate to co-produce biodiesel and triacetin, using calcined hydrotalcite as a heterogeneous base catalyst. Several base catalysts were tested for this reaction. Calcined Mg-Al hydrotalcite (Mg:Al mole ratio – 3:1) was found as the best catalyst for achieving 95.5 % conversion of soybean oil triglycerides in 4 h and yielding 5.3 % selectivity of triacetin along with the value-added intermediates - monoacetindiglycerides and diacetinmonoglycerides, produced with a selectivity of 46 % and 48.7 %, respectively. The optimum reaction conditions were found at an oil to methyl acetate mole ratio of 1:50, catalyst loading of 0.04 g/cm³ and a temperature of 200 ^ºC. The catalysts were fully characterized before and after the reaction, and were found to possess high surface area with both basic and acidic sites. The effect of various reaction conditions on the rate of reaction, conversion of triglycerides and selectivity of triacetin were studied. The concentration profiles of the reactants, intermediates and products obtained at different temperatures were used to obtain the kinetic rate constants and the activation energy of each parallel step was evaluated. Reusability studies showed that the catalyst was stable and reusable up to three cycles.

生物柴油是一种可再生燃料，具有优于石油基燃料的多种优势，并且通常通过甘油三酸酯与醇的酯交换反应生产。与酯交换反应相比，甘油三酸酯的化学酯交换是一个很好的选择，因为它可以产生高附加值的化合物甘油三醋精作为副产品，而不是已经很丰富的商品甘油。在这项工作中，使用煅烧的水滑石作为多相基础催化剂，用乙酸甲酯对大豆油进行了酯交换反应，以共同生产生物柴油和三醋精。测试了几种碱性催化剂用于该反应。发现煅烧的Mg-Al水滑石（Mg：Al摩尔比– 3：1）是在4小时内达到95.5％的大豆油甘油三酸酯转化率和5的最佳催化剂。三醋精及其增值中间体甘油三乙酸甘油酯和甘油二乙酸甘油酯的选择性为3％，分别以46％和48.7％的选择性生产。发现最佳反应条件是油与乙酸甲酯的摩尔比为1:50，催化剂负载量为0.04 g / cm³和200的温度^º C.对催化剂进行了完全表征前和反应后，并发现其具有与碱性和酸性位点的高表面积。研究了各种反应条件对反应速率，甘油三酸酯转化率和甘油三乙酸酯选择性的影响。使用在不同温度下获得的反应物，中间体和产物的浓度曲线来获得动力学速率常数，并评估每个平行步骤的活化能。可重复使用性研究表明，该催化剂稳定且可重复使用多达三个循环。