Synthesis and application of CaO/MnFe2O4 as catalyst in transesterification reaction of palm oil

Abstract

Biodiesel or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) is renewable and eco-friendly energy. This research is related to efforts to obtain excellent catalysts in biodiesel production. The development of biodiesel is one of the efforts to overcome the increasing need for renewable energy. In this study, we synthesized CaO/MnFe2O4 by wet impregnation method at various molar ratios of 6:1 and 7:1, then characterized it and evaluated its performance as a catalyst in biodiesel production through transesterification reaction of palm oil. The characterization results showed that CaO/MnFe2O4 was successfully synthesized as the dominant product. This was evidenced by the match between the CaO/MnFe2O4 diffractogram produced with the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) Card No. 75785 for CaO, and Crystallography Open Database (COD) No. 1010131 for MnFe2O4 using MAUD software. The product from the transesterification reaction was found to meet several criteria as biodiesel according to SNI 7182:2015. Application of CaO/ MnFe2O4 7:1 in.palm oil biodiesel production with a molar ratio of 1:15 (oil:methanol) gave a yield of 75.1 %.