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Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2006, 45, 6874
CORRESPONDENCE Comment on “Heterogeneous Catalytic Deoxygenation of Stearic Acid for Production of Biodiesel” Zongbao (Kent) Zhao* Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, Dalian 116023, People’s Republic of China Sir: In the paper “Heterogeneous Catalytic Deoxygenation of Stearic Acid for Production of Biodiesel”,1 the authors described a process for long-chain hydrocarbons based on decarboxylation and/or decarbonylation of fatty acids. This is an excellent work that potentially links fatty acids that have originated from lipids and vegetable oils to diesel-like hydrocarbons. However, the authors inappropriately referred the products of the deoxygenation of long-chain fatty acids, “the bio-based diesel-like liquids”, as “biodiesel”. In fact, the term “biodiesel” has a specific, technical definition as a fuel comprised of monoalkyl esters of long-chain fatty acids that are derived from vegetable oils or animal fats.2 This definition has now been adopted both by customers for bid specification purposes and by government entities for regulatory purposes. There are a few * E-mail:
[email protected].
established specifications, such as ASTM D6751 (USA), EN 14214 (Europe), and DIN V51606 (German), for biodiesel. Because biodiesel is regarded as a promising renewable liquid fuel, it has become a hot topic recently. People are getting confused about the identity of biodiesel. Sometimes, even biomass pyrolysis oil is regarded as biodiesel. To ensure effective information exchange and documentation, it is very important to keep a clear definition, for our scientific community and the general public. Literature Cited (1) Snåre, M.; Kubicˇkova´, I.; Ma¨ki-Arvela, P.; Era¨nen, K.; Murzin, D. Yu. Heterogeneous Catalytic Deoxygenation of Stearic Acid for Production of Biodiesel. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2006, 45, 5708-5715. (2) Lotero, E.; Liu, Y.; Lopez, D. E.; Suwannakarn, K.; Bruce, D. A.; Goodwin, J. G., Jr. Synthesis of Biodiesel via Acid Catalysis. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2005, 44, 5353-5363.
IE060988R
10.1021/ie060988r CCC: $33.50 © 2006 American Chemical Society Published on Web 08/23/2006
