Heterogeneous catalysts, basic, acidic or bifunctional, can catalyze transesterification reactions where the raw material has a significant content of FFA fatty acids, such as used cooking oils or other lipid-based residues, which do not have the purity required for homogeneous catalysis, in which case the purity of the triglycerides above 99.5% is the first condition for the initiation of the reaction, to avoid saponification. In this work, a green supported catalyst was developed, using bacterial cellulose as catalytic support and biodegradable superbase as a chemical compound, for transesterification reaction to obtain alkyl esters, yielding over 99% of its content at 70 °C temperature and 7.5% catalyst loading (1.5/20 w/w catalyst:oil). A Plackett-–Burman design was used for screening experiments to explore the main effect in terms of catalytic activity and performance of the triglyceride conversion reaction.

A mathematical model based on power law kinetics was selected to simulate the hydrotreating process of diesel fuel (also called diesel oil or diesel), assuming hydrogenation reactions of sulfur compounds, nitrogen compounds, aromatic compounds, and olefins. The process efficiency depended on the diesel flow rate, catalyst volume, hydrogenation reaction rate constants, and reaction orders. The reaction rate constants were expressed as functions of the mean temperature in the catalyst bed using the Arrhenius equation. The parameters of the Arrhenius equation for the hydrogenation of sulfur and nitrogen compounds, i.e., the pre-exponential factors (6.515–15.62·10⁴ h⁻¹) and activation energies (47.24–66.13 kJ/mol), were estimated based on monitoring data obtained in an industrial plant. The results obtained suggested that the catalyst used in the industrial reactor had almost equal specificity for the hydrogenation of sulfur and nitrogen compounds.