ojce.01.2018.08.14

Ethyl levulinate (EL) an oxygenate for diesel miscible bio-fuel or bio-diesel is a clean additive reduces global warming, lesser sulfur content, increase lubricity etc. Ethyl levulinate has been prepared by esterification of biomass derived levulinic acid (LA) with ethanol as an alkylating agent. Dodecatungstophosphoric acid (DTPA) was supported on acidic clay (K10). The increase in conversion of levulinic acid was observed with increase of DTPA loading due to increase in total acidity. 20% (w/w) Dodecatungstophosphoric acid (DTPA) supported on acidic clay (K10) was found to be the optimum solid acid catalyst for the esterification reaction with 79% LA conversion. The present work also extended on optimization of process parameters such as DTPA loading on K10, catalyst loading, molar ratio of ethanol to LA, catalyst reusability and stability. Kinetic modeling is based on pseudo-homogeneous (P-H) model. The reaction follows second order kinetics with activation energy of 33.32 KJ/mol.