Abstract
Magnetic iron nanoparticles (Fe3O4) were synthesized and characterized using Fourier Transformed Infrared ((FT-IR), UV-Visible spectrophotometer, Scanned Electron Microscopy (SEM) equipped with an Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). The synthesized nano catalyst was used in the transesterification of mahogany seed oil with methanol. The optimized reaction conditions gave a reaction yield of 88% at a catalyst concentration of 1.5% wt., a volume ratio of methanol to oil of 5:1, a reaction temperature of 60 °C, and a reaction time of 120 minutes. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles was regenerated from the mixture and reused for various circles by applying the optimum conditions obtained during the present study. The results showed that the biodiesel yield decreased by increasing the number of cycles when the regenerated catalyst was used. However, good conversion (81.9%) was obtained up to the 5th cycles. The elemental analysis of the synthesized magnetic iron nanoparticles Fe3O4) revealed the highest proportion of iron with 64.37 and 74.40% for atomic and weight concentration respectively, followed by oxygen with 34.27 and 24.50% for atomic and weight concentrations respectively. It could be concluded that the synthesized nano catalyst would serve as an excellent catalyst for the transesterification of vegetable oils.
Highlights
Catalysis is one of the applications of nanoparticles [1]
It has been recently discovered that, Nano catalyst has become the focus for an efficient biodiesel production because of high surface area, high catalytic efficiency and resistance to saponification along with good rigidity [11,12,13,14]
Magnetic Iron Nanoparticle was synthesized and characterized using different analytical tools / machines including FT-IR, UV spectrophotometer, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), and XRD
Summary
Catalysis is one of the applications of nanoparticles [1]. Various elements and materials like CuO, aluminium, iron, titanium dioxide, clays, and silica all have been used as catalysts in nanoscale for many years [2,3,4]. Nano catalyst is a material from nanotechnology with the size ranging between 1-100nm [5]. The particle size of the catalyst that is used in biodiesel production is one of the most important factors for its catalytic activity [15]. Some studies have used Nano catalyst in biodiesel production because of it has a high surface area [16]. Many studies have confirmed that catalyst with lower particle size and higher surface area accelerate reaction rates due to an increased number of molecules that have minimum required energy for the reaction to occur [17,18,19,20,21]
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