ORCID
- Lee J. Durndell: 0000-0002-2391-5233
Abstract
Biofuels are critical drop-in replacement energy sources to support the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation and marine shipping. Transesterification of non-edible oils is a well-established route to biodiesel as a versatile liquid transport fuel, but is challenging to scale using existing homogeneous liquid base catalysts. In this work, we report the synthesis, characterisation, and application of silica-supported MgO solid base catalysts for triglyceride transesterification with methanol and highlight the impact of silica pore structure on performance. True liquid crystal templating enables the one-pot synthesis of mesoporous MgO/SBA-15 catalysts with variable Mg content, or hierarchical macroporous–mesoporous MgO/SBA-15 analogues through the addition of polystyrene nanospheres. Both MgO/SBA-15 families exhibit highly ordered pore networks; however, ~280 nm macropores stabilise Mg-O-Si interfacial species even at high Mg loading, in contrast to the mesoporous support that permits sintering of ~14 nm MgO nanocrystals. Hierarchical porous MgO/SBA-15 catalysts exhibit higher specific activity and conversion of tributyrin to methyl butyrate than their mesoporous analogues (3 mmol⋅h−1⋅g−1 versus 2 mmol⋅h−1⋅g−1 at 60 °C and 11 wt% Mg). The magnitude of this rate enhancement increases with triglyceride chain length, being approximately three-fold for trilaurin (C12) transesterification at 90 °C, attributed to superior in-pore mass transport of bulky reactants through the hierarchical porous catalyst.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2025-11-04
Publication Title
Catalysts
Volume
15
Issue
11
ISSN
2073-4344
Acceptance Date
2025-10-27
Deposit Date
2026-03-27
Funding
This research was funded by the EPSRC (EP/K036548/1 and EP/K014706/1) and Australian Research Council (DP200100204, DP200100313, and LE210100100). KW thanks the Royal Society for an Industry Fellowship. Support from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 604307 is also acknowledged.
Additional Links
Keywords
biodiesel, hierarchical, MgO, porous solid, SBA-15, transesterification
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Bryant, T., Damptey, L., Isaacs, M., Parlett, C., Durndell, L., Granollers Mesa, M., Kyriakou, G., Wilson, K., & Lee, A. (2025) 'Impact of Macroporosity on the Transesterification of Triglycerides over MgO/SBA-15', Catalysts, 15(11). Available at: 10.3390/catal15111054
