An alkaline quaternized polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based heterogeneous catalyst was prepared and characterized with the purpose of producing biodiesel by transesterification.The PAN was modified by the following three steps:reduction

quaternization and alkalization.The various studies were carried out to evaluate the impact of time

temperature and reactive loadings on reduction and quaternization and to optimize the reaction conditions.In the reduction of nitrile groups to amine groups in the presence of lithium aluminium hydride

both reduction agent loadings and reaction time corresponded to reduction efficiency.In the quaternization step

2

3-epoxypropyltrimethylammonium chloride (EPTAC) as the quaternary ammonium agent was introduced because its reactive epoxy can be grafted with amine group easily.The exceed loadings of EPTAC can improve the amount of alkali significantly which can reach to 0.8034 mmol/g.The modified polymer is characterized by FTIR

XPS and DSC respectively to obtain chemical structure information.The heterogeneous catalysts were applied for transesterification.As a result

at 333 K and with the catalyst loading of 2.0 meq(OH-)/g oil

the biodiesel conversion is up to 64.7%.