Herein, we report a systematic study of esterification of palmitic
acid with methanol at lower acid to methanol ratio over SZr catalyst, prepared by simple conventional method. The effects of various reaction parameters such as acid to alcohol molar ratio,
catalyst amount, reaction temperature, time, stirring speed along
with other short chain alcohols namely ethanol, n-propanol and
n-butanol have been studied. The re-cycling of SZr catalyst and
important factors leading to its deactivation during its re-cycling
has also been addressed.