Production of biodiesel through nanocatalytic transesterification of extracted oils from halophytic safflower and salicornia plants in the presence of deep eutectic solvents

Abstract

In this work, biodiesel production through transesterification of extracted oil from the halophytic salicornia persica and safflower plants in the vicinity of calcium oxide catalyst are investigated. In this direction, to solve the main problems of calcium oxide catalyst, which includes inactivation of the catalyst in the presence of moisture and carbon dioxide and leaching of catalyst particles, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) and supported catalyst have been used. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the important parameters (M/O molar ratio, ωCat, ωDES and reaction time). The optimum values for these parameters were 12, 9%, 14% and 3 h, respectively. In this condition, the reaction efficiency was 97.01. Effect of different deep eutectic solvents (ChCl:Ac, ChCl:U, ChCl:EG, ChCl:Gly, ChCl:TU, ChCl:1,2-PDO) were investigated on the reaction of safflower and S. persica oils with methanol in the presence of calcium oxide catalyst. The maximum yield for 95% S. persica oil was obtained using ChCl:EG solvent. To improve the biodiesel production, different catalysts (CCaO, SCaO, CCaO/Na-ZSM5 and SCaO/Na-ZSM5) were activated with ChCl/EG and used in transesterification reaction under optimum conditions. The obtained results showed S. persica oil was converted to biodiesel with 98.1% efficiency in the presence CaO/Na-ZSM5. The presented eco-friendly process is very important for minimizing the freshwater consumption and achieving a green and economical way with the ability to industrialize the biodiesel production.