Boosting biodiesel production of waste frying oil using solid magnetic acid catalyst from agro-industrial waste

Abstract

In the present study, a new magnetic acid solid catalyst composed of an agro-industrial waste (rice husk ash-RHA) magnetized with cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) and impregnated with MoO3 was synthesized and applied in the methyl transesterification reaction of waste frying oil (WFO) for biodiesel production. The catalyst was synthesized by wet impregnation method and characterized by the following techniques: surface acidity, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The one variable at time (OVAT) technique was used to optimize the variables of the transesterification reaction in the following ranges: temperature (130.0–170.0 °C), methanol:oil molar ratio (10:1–50:1), catalyst amount (2.0–10.0 wt%), and reaction time (1.0–5.0 h). The results demonstrate that the application of the MoO3/RHA-CoFe2O4 synthesized catalyst resulted in the attainment a biodiesel with ester content of 94.6 % under the optimized reaction conditions: temperature of 160.0 °C, methanol:oil molar ratio of 20:1, catalyst amount of 6.0 wt%, and reaction time of 3.0 h. The biodiesel produced was characterized and presented physicochemical properties in accordance with the limits established by the international standards ASTM D6751 and EN 14214. The kinetic study of the transesterification process revealed that the pseudo-first order model is the most suitable with an activation energy of 27.3 kJ mol−1. In addition, the catalyst showed bifunctional character (catalytic and magnetic), as well as high catalytic stability after ten reaction cycles, maintaining the production of biodiesel with ester content above 70.0 %, indicating its high potential for development and application.