Comparison of photocatalytic vs conventional transesterification for biodiesel preparation from fish waste oil using green TiO2/SiO2 catalyst

Abstract

This work has focussed on various aspects that include environmental beingness, conservation of energy, and compatibility of TiO2 over the porous material SiO2. The current work describes the single pot green synthesis of TiO2/SiO2 photocatalyst using pongamia pinnata leaf extract. Core shell formation of TiO2 over SiO2 was displayed in SEM pictures confirming the uniform coating of TiO2 on SiO2. Fish waste oil was employed as the bioresource for the FAME preparation through phototransesterification and conventional transesterification methodologies using the composite catalyst. At the fixed reaction conditions (catalyst weight = 30mg, and oil: methanol = 1:5), TiO2/SiO2 catalyst showed good catalytic activity in both photoinduced and conventional transesterification methods (97.5% and 98.6% respectively into 94.5% and 95.65% FAME respectively). The resulting biodiesel was tested according to ASTM standards which showed the viscosity of the photocatalytic biodiesel (5.6mm2/S) and transesterification biodiesel (4.5 mm2/S) was higher and calorific value (<45 MJ/kg) was also marginally less compared to fossil diesel. The future scope of the work would be to increase the HHV and studies on automobile parameters of the prepared biodiesel.