Abstract
Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) is a waste from refining crude palm oil, and it is a cheap low-quality feedstock due to its high free fatty acid (FFA) content. Esterification process is necessary to lower the level of FFA in PFAD. The physical and chemical properties of PFAD were studied and compared with previously reported studies and it was found that most of the PFAD parameters showed comparable values or were within the expected range. GC-MS analysis confirmed that the fatty acid in PFAD is 44.99% palmitic acid and 38.15% oleic acid. The optimized reaction conditions obtained for the esterification of PFAD by using ammonium ferric sulfate-calcium silicate (AFS-CS) as heterogeneous acid catalyst were 2-h reaction time, 12 wt% of AFS-CS catalyst amount and 15:1 methanol to PFAD molar ratio at 65 °C to produce maximum methyl esters conversion of 80%. The rate of leaching at active sites on the catalyst was very high; hence, the catalyst is not suitable to be reused.
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