Abstract
The diminution of edible oils and increasing cost of edible oils and biodiesel have gained the interest of many researchers for non-edible oils as biodiesel feed stock. The major hurdle in the commercialization of biodiesel is the high cost of feedstock. Due to fast mushrooming of fast food centers, waste cooking oil is one of the most economical feedstock available for the biodiesel production. The high free fatty acid contents and moisture in the waste cooking oil hinders the homogenous transesterification for the commercial purposes. Mixed oxides of Cu with Ni and Ce were synthesized by co-precipitation method and their efficacy for the production of biodiesel from the waste cooking oil was inspected. The acid catalyzed heterogeneous transesterification of waste cooking oil was performed in the sealed container. It was also interesting to mention that no pre-treatment was executed for the waste cooking oil conversion to biodiesel. It was investigated that mixed oxide catalyst CuO-CeO2 proved to be the potential candidate in pilot scale biodiesel production from waste cooking oil having about 92% conversion rate. Comprehensive chemical analysis of biodiesel including NMR, GC-MS, and FT-IR supports our result.
Published Version
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