Oxygenate Synthesis tert-Butyl Glycerol via Etherification of Glycerol

• Main Author: SINAR RUMINTEN (NIM : 10513084), RANIS
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/30224
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

<p align="justify">Glycerol is a byproduct in biodiesel synthesis, yet this compound can be used to synthesize oxygenate. Oxygenate is an additive for biodiesel to increase its quality, especially in increasing oxygen rate. tert-Butyl glycerol is an oxygenate that can be produced by reacting glycerol and isobutene. Unfortunetaly, this reaction usually carried out in high pressure. In this research, tri tert-butyl glycerol was synthesized by reacting glycerol with tert-butanol. The tert-butanol was produced by isobutene hydration in order to minimize the pressure needed compared to reacting directly from isobutene. The optmized condition for isobutene hydration was at 60 oC for 2 hours using 30 % mol H2SO4 as catalyst. The concentration of tert-butanol obtained was determined by comparing the integration of inner standard, metanol, to tert-butanol on 1H NMR spectra. The reactions were carried out in three different variation, first using different amount of catalyst, second using different catalyst, and third using different reactant . The first reaction used H2SO4 8,4 mol% and H2SO4 17 mol% as catalyst, highest yield was obtained from using H2SO4 17 mol%. The second reaction used H2SO4 and para-toluene sulfonic acid as catalyst, highest yield was obtained from using para-toluene sulfonic acid as catalyst. The third reaction used tert-butanol and crude C4 as reactant, highest yield was obtained from using tert-butanol. The three reactions produced mono tert-butyl glycerol that showed only mono susbtitution occurred instead of three.<p align="justify">