• Clean Technology
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2024

Jatropha oil extracted from the seeds of Nepalese Jatropha curcas, a non-edible crop, was used as a raw material and converted to biodiesel through a two-step process consisting of an esterification reaction and a transesterification reaction. Amberlyst-15 catalyst was applied to the esterification reaction between the free fatty acids contained in the Jatropha oil and methanol. The acid value of the Jatropha oil could be lowered from 11.0 to 0.26 mgKOH/g through esterification. Biodiesel was synthesized through a transesterification reaction between Jatropha oil with an acid value of 0.26 mgKOH/g and methanol over NaOH/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts. As the loading amount of NaOH increased from 3 to 25 wt%, the specific surface area decreased from 129 to 28 m²/g and the pore volume decreased from 0.249 to 0.129 cm³/g. The amount and intensity of base sites over the NaOH/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts increased simultaneously with the NaOH loading amount. It was confirmed that the optimal NaOH loading amount for the NaOH/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was 12 wt%. The optimal temperature for the transesterification reaction of Jatropha oil using the NaOH/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst was selected to be 65 ℃. In the transesterification reaction of Jatropha oil using the NaOH/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst, the reaction rate was affected by external diffusion limitation when the stirring speed was below 150 RPM, however the external diffusion limitation was negligible at higher stirring speeds.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.227-237
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• 2008

Arsenic has recently become of the most serious environmental concerns, and the worldwide regulation of arsenic fur drinking water has been reinforced. Arsenic contaminated groundwater and soil have been frequently revealed as well, and arsenic contamination and its treatment and measures have been domestically raised as one of the most important environmental issues. Arsenic behavior in geo-environment is principally affected by oxides and clay minerals, and particularly iron (oxy)hydroxides have been well known to be most effective in controlling arsenic. Among a number of iron (oxy)hydroxides, for this reason, 2-line ferrihydrite was selected in this study to investigate its effect on arsenic behavior. Adsorption of 2-line ferrihydrite was characterized and compared between As(III) and As(V) which are known to be the most ubiquitous species among arsenic forms in natural environment. Two-line ferrihydrite synthesized in the lab as the adsorbent of arsenic had $10\sim200$ nm for diameter, $247m^{2}/g$ for specific surface area, and 8.2 for pH of zero charge, and those representative properties of 2-line ferrihydrite appeared to be greatly suitable to be used as adsorbent of arsenic. The experimental results on equilibrium adsorption indicate that As(III) showed much stronger adsorption affinity onto 2-line ferrihydrite than As(V). In addition, the maximum adsorptions of As(III) and As(V) were observed at pH 7.0 and 2.0, respectively. In particular, the adsorption of As(III) did not show any difference between pH conditions, except for pH 12.2. On the contrary, the As(V) adsorption was remarkably decreased with increase in pH. The results obtained from the detailed experiments investigating pH effect on arsenic adsorption show that As(III) adsorption increased up to pH 8.0 and dramatically decreased above pH 9.2. In case of As(V), its adsorption steadily decreased with increase in pH. The reason the adsorption characteristics became totally different depending on arsenic species is attributed to the fact that chemical speciation of arsenic and surface charge of 2-line ferrihydrite are significantly affected by pH, and it is speculated that those composite phenomena cause the difference in adsorption between As(III) and As(V). From the view point of adsorption kinetics, adsorption of arsenic species onto 2-line ferrihydrite was investigated to be mostly completed within the duration of 2 hours. Among the kinetic models proposed so for, power function and elovich model were evaluated to be the most suitable ones which can simulate adsorption kinetics of two kinds of arsenic species onto 2-line ferrihydrite.