On Nov 22, 2004, at 9:52 AM, rb 9 tr wrote:
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Why not tap your best customer? Combine it with a
short-chain acid (e.g., butyric or acetic?) and put
it back into your product. There are a few other
possibilities.
Huh ? Not sure what you mean.
Are you suggesting to re-esterify the glycerine with
a (shorter) fatty acid and put the ester into
biodiesel ?
Yes, I thought that was a pretty creative suggestion also --
surprised I'd never heard it (or thought of it myself :-))
before. I actually poked around the literature a bit.
Triacetin (glyceryl triacetate) is liquid above 3 deg C
(better than biodiesel), and is commonly used as a
solvent and in cosmetics. Quite flammable I'm sure,
and probly burns about like other short-chain oils
(eg, ghee, etc.) The acetic acid is easily biosynthesized,
of course.
The main problem I see (aside from regulatory as you
point out) is that synthesis of oils from alcohols and
glycerol is subject to all the equilibrium problems of
acid-catalyzed esterification in general, ie, large excess
of alcohol required, and difficult isolation of product
from reactants. Good candidate for a supercritical
industrial-scale process. -K
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