Introduction: Synthesis of biodiesel is an example of a transesterification reaction. In a transesterification reaction, the alkoxy part of the ester is exchanged for a different alkoxy group. Biodiesels are fuels that are produced from renewable plant or animal wastes. It is a mixture of methyl esters of long chain carboxylic acids that are produced from naturally occurring oils. For this experiment, vegetable oil will be used to synthesis biodiesel. The mechanism for this reaction is a nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction. In the synthesis, the nucleophile is the methoxide ion, which is a strong nucleophile generated from methanol and potassium hydroxide base. The methoxide nucleophile then attacked the C=O group. Additionally, since the reaction is reversible, an excess of methoxide or methanol is used to favor the product. Overall, the purpose of the lab is to perform a nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction for the synthesis of biodiesel.
Results:
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After performing the experiment, 7.663g of biodiesel was synthesized. The appearance of the final product was a thick clear liquid substance with a hint of very light color. The % w/w yield was calculated to be 89 percent, this is calculated by dividing the mass of biodiesel obtained with the mass of vegetable oil used. Furthermore, the IR spectra produced after obtaining the final produced showed there was no impurities because an OH stretch was not present. On the IR a C-H stretch is observed around 2850-3000cm-1 and C=O stretch is observed around