Effect of Calcination on Shell Powder Catalyst Towards Effectiveness on Catalysing Transesterification of Crude Glycerol to Glycerol Carbonate

Abstract

Valorisation of crude glycerol has gained much interest in the industry associated with the surplus of crude glycerol caused by the increase usage of biodiesel. Transesterification of crude glycerol using a heterogenous base catalyst is one of the effective ways to utilize the additional glycerol. Seawater clams commonly serve as a food source to us and the waste shells are a source of calcium carbonate that is abundantly available and can be converted into a heterogenous base catalyst for the transesterification process. Therefore, this study focuses on the utilization of catalyst synthesized from a species of seawater clam, Paratapes Undulatus in a transesterification reaction using crude glycerol (C.GLY) as a reactant together with dimethyl carbonate (DMC) to synthesize glycerol carbonate (GLYC). The catalysts are characterized using Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Particle Size Analyser (PSA). The product is characterized using Gas Chromatography (GC-FID). The performance of the synthesized shell catalyst with different calcination condition was studied. The reaction using the calcined shell catalyst is carried out at 75°C, molar ratio of 2 and 2wt% of catalyst for 1 hour. The catalyst that has the best performance is the shell catalyst that is calcined for 3h, which give the yield of 54.16%.