Synthesis of Solketal from Glycerol and Acetone over Amberlyst-46 to Produce an Oxygenated Fuel Additive

Abstract

Recently, with rapid consumption of fossil fuel sources all over the world, the interest in alternative fuels has increased. Biodiesel is one of the most preferable one produced by transesterification of triglyceride with alcohol, yielding glycerol as the by-product. As a drawback, increase in biodiesel production has lead to an increase in availability of glycerol. In this work, glycerol was converted to solketal in 84 % chemical yield under optimum conditions via reaction of acetone over Amberlyst-46 heterogeneous catalyst. Solketal was blended 3, 5, 7 and 10 vol% with oxygenate free gasoline. When compared to unblended gasoline the higher values of research octane number and motor octane number were obtained with blended ones.