We studied the esterification of free fatty acids (FFA) in tung oil with methanol by using activated carbon treated with sulfuric acid as a catalyst, and investigated the effect of different temperatures, methanol/oil mole ratio and catalyst amount on the conversion of FFA. Results show that the optimal reaction condition is when the reaction time is 2 h, the mass fraction of the catalyst to total material is 5%, the molar ratio of menthol to FFA is 15 : 1, and the reaction temperature is 368.15 K. We also investigated the kinetics of esterification at various temperatures. Results indicate that the rate-control step could be attributed to the surface reaction, and within the range of the experimental conditions, the as-calculated kinetics formula can depict the esterification processes well.
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