The Study of Calcium Oxide from Cockle Shell Used as a Low-Cost Catalyzer for Biodiesel Production

Abstract

In this paper, the cockle shell was studied as a catalyzer for biodiesel production. The cockle shell was heated at the various temperatures from 200 to 1300 °C for 4 h in the furnace. Then, the crystal structure and function group of unheated and heated cockle shell were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. The results indicated that the initial phase of cockle shell is aragonite phase. After heat at 400 °C, the aragonite phase transformed to calcite phase. Moreover, the calcite phase of cockle shell was completely changed to calcium oxide (CaO) after heated at 800 °C. Eventually, the yield of biodiesel used the CaO derived from cockle shell were determined by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The results show that the CaO derived from cockle shell can be used as a catalyzer of biodiesel preparation. However, the biodiesel used CaO from cockle shell after heated at 1100 to 1300 °C as a catalyzer have the higher yield than other heated temperature. Finally, the results of this research indicated that the CaO from cockle shell could be used as a catalyst for biodiesel production.