Treatment of glycerin fraction Doctoral Thesis Summary

Juan Carlos Beltrán Prieto

The recent increase in the amount of surplus glycerin as a result of biodiesel production has caused an intensive research aiming to find new applications for glycerin with special interest in the development of value added products. In this work, the partial oxidation of glycerin on platinum electrodes in presence of manganese dioxide (MnO2) by electrochemical methods was performed by means of cyclic voltammetry and multiple pulse amperometry techniques. The case of controlled oxidation of glycerol using nitrous oxide was also analyzed and explained. A method for the identification and quantification of glycerin oxidation products was developed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).