NOVEL DEVELOPMENTS OF WHITE CLAY FILLER CATALYSIS FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine the performance of white clay as catalyst filler for biodiesel production. White clay catalyst prepared with a calcination temperature of 900 °C for 5.5 hr exhibited 12.57 wt% calcium oxide converted from calcium carbonate and providing strong base of 2.30 mmol/g. Furthermore, calcium oxide was confirmed through characteristic of XRD patterns at 32.32^o, 37.47^o, 53.00^o, 62.72^o, 64.92^o with a high porosity. ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) showed that palm oil could be readily converted to a biodiesel product through transesterification by using 9 wt.% (by weight of palm oil) calcium oxide catalyst: methanol (1:9) at 65 °C for 2 hr. The maximum biodiesel production more than 80 % was obtained and reusable up to 4 times of consecutive runs under the optimum conditions compared with the commercial available. These findings have opened novel catalyst filler for highly biodiesel production with economical and environment-friendly materials.