Production of Biodiesel from Neem Oil Feedstock Using Bifunctional Catalyst

Abstract

Due to rapid depletion of fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, biodiesel provides a promising platform for clean energy production. The raw material and catalyst are the most important factors which affect the commercialization of biodiesel production. In this work, Neem oil is used as a feedstock, which contains high amount of free fatty acids accompanied by moisture content. Low quality feedstock require an additional esterification step for their processing. Bifunctional heterogeneous catalysts are gaining much attention as they possess both acidic and basic groups to carry out the transesterification as well as esterification reactions simultaneously. This study investigates the production of biodiesel from neem oil using pumice, a volcanic rock, as a bifunctional catalyst. The effect of process parameters—Process time, Oil—Ethanol ratio and Oil—Catalyst ratio respectively on biodiesel yield were studied and a maximum yield of 90.5 % was achieved.