Scheme 1a shows a schematic block diagram of the transesterification of vegetable oil using supercritical methanol.
This process yielded two products:biodiesel and glycerol. Weintroduced ametal precursor (zincnitrate)into this process to increase the FAME yield and to produce metal (zinc)oxide nanoparticles as a byproduct.
After the introduct ion of the precursor, the process yielded three products:biodiesel,glycerol,and metal (zinc) oxide in the form of nanoparticles, with the in situ formed metal oxide behaving as acatalyst.Aschematic block diagram of the latter process is shown in Scheme 1b.