Production of sustainable biofuel from biogenic waste using CuO nanoparticles as heterogeneous catalyst

Abstract

Biofuel is renewable, environmentally friendly and non-toxic in nature. The present work focuses on the preparation of biofuel from waste cooking mustard oil. Biofuel was synthesized from waste cooking mustard oil using CuO nanoparticles as a heterogeneous catalyst for converting waste cooking mustard oil into biofuel in the presence of methanol. XRD peaks confirm that the formation of CuO from each precursor was in a monoclinic phase and the average grain size of CuO crystallite was found to be 13 nm. The FTIR results confirmed the presence of methyl and ester groups in the synthesised biofuel. FESEM images indicate the morphology as facets broken flower. The EDAX result shows that there are no other elemental impurities present in the prepared CuO nanoparticles. The product was analysed by GC–MS to verify the Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAMEs). Transesterification was used to reduce the viscosity of the oil. These results reveal that the synthesized biofuel can be considered as a prospective alternative fuel over the conventional diesel fuel.