Hoa Thi Viet Tran’s scientific contributions

In the present study, the methanolysis of tra fat using KOH/γ-Al2O3 as heterogenous catalyst was performed with the help of low frequency ultrasonic processor (20 kHz). The main object of this study was to investigate the influences of parameters like methanol to fat molar ratio, catalyst concentration, time and temperature of reaction, wave amplitudes, and energy input on the yield of biodiesel. Moreover, this research also examined the influences of ultrasonic wave on the fatty acid composition and the properties of KOH/γ-Al2O3 catalyst.

In our work, biodiesel was prepared from Tra fat by methanolysis reaction using activated calcium oxide as solid base catalyst. Effects of various process parameters on biodiesel production such as molar ratio of methanol to fat, catalyst concentration, temperature and time of reaction and the active mechanism of CaO catalyst for the transesterification reaction were investigated. The results show that CaO has strong basicity and high catalytic activity as a heterogeneous solid base catalyst and the transesterification reaction takes place on basic sites of calcium diglyceroxide formed due to the reaction between Cao and the by-produced glycerol. The biodiesel yield achieves 92.95 % at 60°C, 90 minutes, 8:1 molar ratio of fat to methanol, and 6 % CaO catalyst. Important fuel properties of the produced biodiesel meet the specifications of ASTM D 6751 biodiesel standard.

In this study, biodiesel was produced from fat of tra catfish by methanolysis reaction with KOH/y-A12O3 heterogenous catalyst. This research was carried out using response surface methodology (RSM) based on four-variable central composite design (CCD) with a = 1,54671. The transesterification process variables and their investigated ranges were methanol/fat molar ratio (X1: 7/1 - 9/1), catalyst concentration (X2: 5%-7%), reaction time (X3: 60 min - 120 min), and reaction temperature (X4: 55 °C - 65 °C). The result show the biodiesel yield could be reach up to 92,8 % using the following optimized reaction condition: molar ratio of methanol/fat at 8,26/1, catalyst concentration of 5,79 %, reaction time of 96 min, and reaction temperature at 59,6 °C.

The oxidation reaction of toluene to benzaldehyde by MoO3 acid-treated bentonite and TiO2 were conducted in gas phase. The experiment result show that the catalyst has significantly improved the reaction yield.