Biodiesel Synthesis from Used Cooking Oil Using Red Mud as Heterogeneous Catalyst

Abstract

The problem associated with biodiesel production is economic feasibility. The biodiesel cost will reduce when the low cost feedstock was used as feedstock. Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is a promising candidate as raw material for biodiesel synthesis. In this study, the investigation of biodiesel synthesis from UCO was studied using red mud as heterogeneous catalysts. The catalyst was prepared by impregnating Potassium metals on red mud. The catalyst physico-characteristics were determined using Nitrogen gas adsorption, FT-IR, XRD, and XRF. The catalyst was tested to synthesize biodiesel from UCO. The reaction temperatures, methanol to oil mass ratio, and amount of catalyst were varied to examine their effects on biodiesel synthesis. The optimum reaction conditions were obtained at 60°C of reaction temperature, 10:1 of methanol to oil mass ratio, and 10% of catalyst amount. The highest biodiesel yield of 94.4% was obtained.