LAUSR

Abstract Decanoic acid, found in naturally occurring coconut and palm kernel oils, and in genetically modified cuphea plant species, is gaining increasing importance as platform chemical for the development of many useful products. Although perceived to be an important starting molecule for production of biodiesel, the process of production of and fuel properties of its ethyl ester have never been explored before. In this article, we have reported about laboratory-based studies for esterification of decanoic acid with ethanol in presence of solid acid catalysts. Activation energy of the esterification reaction was found to be 38.5 KJ/mol. The studies showed that the conversion of decanoic acid to its ethyl ester can be performed at optimal temperature 348 K in presence of solid acid catalyst. We have also investigated salient fuel properties of ethyl decanoate and its several blends with conventional fossil-derived diesel and found that use of ethyl decanoate with conventional diesel could become economically attractive.