Abstract
The present work was aimed at assessing the possible use of ripe plantain fruit peel as a green-base catalyst in synthesizing Azadirachta indica oil methyl esters (AIOME). The free fatty acid content of the oil (5.81 wt %) was initially reduced to 0.90 wt % using methanol: oil at 2.19 v/v, Fe2(SO4)3 at 6 wt %, time of 15 min and temperature of 65 °C. The pretreated oil was converted to AIOME in a transesterification process with calcined ripe plantain peel ash (CRPPA) at 700 °C as catalyst. The process was modeled by artificial neural network and optimized using genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the developed CRPPA is ascribable to its high K content and microstructural transformation. The reliability of the model obtained was confirmed with a high coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.996 and a low mean relative percentage deviation (MRPD) of 8.10%. The best operating variables combination for the process was methanol:oil of 0.73 v/v, CRPPA of 0.65 wt % and time of 57 min while the temperature was kept constant at 65 °C with a corresponding AIOME yield of 99.2 wt %. The results of this work demonstrated the potentials of ripe plantain peels and neem oil as cheap feedstocks for biodiesel production.
Highlights
Biodiesel production is a topical issue and a subject which has been receiving huge attention worldwide for the past two decades
We have previously shown the potential of unripe plantain fruit peel ash as catalyst for yellow oleander biodiesel production [8], it could be argued that catalyst development from the plantain may have a negative impact on food security from this source as it was earlier highlighted that plantain are generally consumed when ripened
A two-step transesterification process was adopted for the methyl esters synthesis, we previously showed that the acid value of the neem oil used in this study could be reduced from 5.81% to 0.90% in the first-step pretreatment process using methanol:oil of 2.19 v/v, Fe2(SO4)3 of 6 wt %, reaction time of 15 min and temperature of 65 ◦C [5]
Summary
Biodiesel production is a topical issue and a subject which has been receiving huge attention worldwide for the past two decades. We recently demonstrated that by using cocoa pod husk ash calcined at 700 ◦C as the catalyst, 99.3 wt % biodiesel yield could be achieved using neem oil and methanol via the transesterification process, which was optimized using RSM [5]. In Tan et al [6], waste cooking oil, methanol, and Ostrich-eggshell ash calcined at 1000 ◦C were used to attain 96 wt % biodiesel yield in a transesterification reaction carried out at room temperature while 96 wt % yield biodiesel was obtained from yellow oleander oil and methanol using burnt banana trunk as catalyst [7], both studies were not optimized. Both RSM and artificial neural network (ANN) were used to optimize the transesterification reaction of yellow oleander oil and methanol using unripe plantain peel ash calcined at 500 ◦C as catalyst.
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