Novel catalyst use in glycerin dehydration chemistry

Traditionally in biodiesel production vegetable oils such as soy, canola, or corn oil are reacted with a mono-alcohol in order to cleave fatty acids from a glycerol backbone. Glycerol is produced as a co-product from this reaction and has lead to a glut in the glycerol market. In order to further increase the usefulness of this co-product, a catalytic gas dehydration of pure glycerol is performed in order to produce acrolein which is a more valuable precursor chemical in the production of acrylic acid and other specialty chemicals. There are many catalysts that can be used in this dehydration process; typically phosphoric acid is used but this has led to problems with coking and fouling due to its overly acidic nature. To alleviate this issue the catalyst sodium dihydrogen phosphate is used.