CUPRIC CHLORIDE AND CUPROUS CHLORIDE

Copper chloride is the chemical compound with the chemical formula CuCl2. This is a light brown solid, which slowly absorbs moisture to form a blue-green dihydrate. The copper(II) chlorides are some of the most common copper(II) compounds, after copper sulfate. Both the anhydrous and the dihydrate forms occur naturally as the very rare minerals tolbachite and eriochalcite, respectively. Anhydrous CuCl2 adopts a distorted cadmium iodide structure. In this motif, the copper centers are octahedral. Most copper(II) compounds exhibit distortions from idealized octahedral geometry due to the Jahn-Teller effect, which in this case describes the localization of one d-electron into a molecular orbital that is strongly antibonding with respect to a pair of chloride ligands. In CuCl2•2H2O, the copper again adopts a highly distorted octahedral geometry, the Cu(II) centers being surrounded by two water ligands and four chloride ligands, which bridge asymmetrically to other Cu centers. Cupric chloride is also known as copper chloride having the formula cucl2. It is brown yellow powder which is hygroscopic in nature. However, Cupric chloride Dihydrate is green, deliquescent crystals, which are soluble in water and alcohol. The field of application of cupric chloride encompasses pigments, isomerization and cracking catalyst, mordant in dyeing and printing fabrics, as wood preservative, disinfectant etc. However, Cupric chloride dihydrate Cucl2.2H2O is used in the preparation of copper oxychloride, as a pigment in glass and ceramics, as mordant in textile industry, etc. Biodiesel is defined by ASTM International as a fuel composed of monoalkyl esters of long-chain fatty acids derived from renewable vegetable oils or animal fats meeting the requirements of ASTM D6751 (ASTM 2008a). Vegetable oils and animal fats are principally composed of triacylglycerols (TAG) consisting of longchain fatty acids chemically bound to a glycerol (1,2,3 propanetriol) backbone. The chemical process by which biodiesel is prepared is known as the transesterification reaction, which involves a TAG reaction with a short-chain monohydric alcohol normally in the presence of a catalyst at elevated temperature to form fatty acid alkyl esters (FAAE) and glycerol. The conversion of TAG to biodiesel is a stepwise process whereby the alcohol initially reacts with TAG as the alkoxide anion to produce FAAE and diacylglycerols (DAG, reaction), which react further with alcohol (alkoxide) to liberate another molecule of FAAE and generate monoacylglyerols (MAG, reaction). Lastly, MAG undergo alcoholysis to yield glycerol and FAAE, with the combined FAAE collectively known as biodiesel. Three moles of biodiesel and one mole of glycerol are produced for every mole of TAG that undergoes complete conversion.