Petroleum Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Petroleum, including details on crude oil, extraction, chemistry, pollution.

Green chemistry: biodiesel made with sugar catalyst.

Toda M, Takagaki A, Okamura M, Kondo JN, Hayashi S, Domen K, Hara M

Chemical Resources Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan.

The production of diesel from vegetable oil calls for an efficient solid catalyst to make the process fully ecologically friendly. Here we describe the preparation of such a catalyst from common, inexpensive sugars. This high-performance catalyst, which consists of stable sulphonated amorphous carbon, is recyclable and its activity markedly exceeds that of other solid acid catalysts tested for 'biodiesel' production.

Published 10 November 2005 in Nature, 438(7065): 178.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Petroleum Research Today. All Rights Reserved.