A reactive poly(styrene sulfonic acid) catalyst preparation and usage for fuel additive ester production

The production of new generation fuels from sustainable resource is prominent issue of the current world. A wide range of feedstock can be used to produce first generation liquid fuel from starch to corn. Besides the first one, second generation fuel is considered as fuel additive for increasing the calorific value of gasoline and limiting the hazardous gas emission. Only small amount usage of lignocellulosic based additives such as ethyl valerate (EV) increases the energy density of fuel. Due to the non-hazardous and less irritant properties of ethyl valerate it is defined as “green fuel”. It was reported that the 10-20% blend ratio of EV with gasoline causes a significant improvement for engine performance. EV is chemically produced by esterification reaction between ethanol and valeric acid. Reaction can be carried out by means of heterogeneous, homogeneous acid catalyst, lipase and ionic liquids and reactive polymers. In this study, a reactive poly (styrene sulfonic acid) (PSSA) catalyst was prepared and used for ethyl valerate synthesis at different temperature conditions. Effect of alcohol:acid feed molar ratio was also investigated as a function of acid conversion. Better results were obtained as 77.9 % acid conversion at 343 K when alcohol:acid feed molar ratio was 4:1.