The Development of Biodiesel Production from Vegetable Oils by Using Different Proportions of Lime Catalyst and Sodium Hydroxide

Abstract

In order to development of natural heterogeneous catalyst base for biodiesel production were achieved in 3 steps. The first was the selection of lime burning conditions from 3 different temperatures; 700°C, 800°C and 900°C. The highest yield of biodiesel at 6:1 mole ratio of methanol and palm oil was observed by using CaO from 800°C as catalyst under transesterification for 2 hr at 60°C. The yield was 81.2%. Moreover, SEM and ERX analysis of CaO from 800°C showed 69.63% of CaO as main composition with pH value between 8.1-9.9. The effect of CaO:NaOH proportions on biodiesel production at the same condition of first step were analyzed as second steps. Biodiesel production by using 1.25 (w/v)% of total catalyst were done at 5 different proportions of CaO:NaOH that were 0:1, 0.25:0.75, 0.5:0.5, 0.75:0.25 and 1:0. Results showed that CaO:NaOH proportions at 0.75 : 0.25 gave maximum biodiesel yield at 86.3%. These conditions were used as third step of biodiesel production from 3 different vegetable oils; sunflower oil, soybean oil and used vegetable cooking oil. The biodiesel yields from sunflower oil, soybean oil and used vegetable cooking oil sunflower oil were 93.5%, 84.1% and 76.4%, respectively. Therefore, on biodiesel production, the reduction of NaOH was estimated about 75% by replacing with CaO from burned lime.