Ionic liquids in supercritical methanol greatly enhance transesterification reaction for high‐yield biodiesel production

Significance Biodiesel production is one of the most promising future alternatives to replacing fossil fuels. This work studies the use of ionic liquids (ILs) as potential catalysts in supercritical methanol for biodiesel production from non‐edible oil. The transesterification reaction of karanja oil was investigated in supercritical methanol in the presence of two respective ILs, [BMIM+][ ] and [Chol+][H2 ]. The reaction was performed in a one‐step batch process at several temperatures and percentages by weight of catalyst (w/woil). The results obtained show that the IL [Chol+][H2 ] allows a high yield of fatty acid methyl esters to be achieved in a short reaction time (above 95% in 45 min). A catalytic mechanism is also proposed for the IL that offered significant catalytic activity. This work investigates the effects of the use of ionic liquids as potential catalysts in supercritical methanol for the transesterification reaction of non‐edible oil. The reported reaction times to obtain biodiesel yields above 90% through the transesterification reaction of karanja oil range between 90 min and 8 h. ILs as catalysts in supercritical methanol drastically reduce reaction time (45 min) to obtain high fatty acid methyl ester yield (95.6%). © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 3842–3846, 2016