Transesterification of waste frying oil for synthesizing biodiesel by KOH supported on coconut shell activated carbon in packed bed reactor

Abstract

Heterogeneous catalysis of transesterification using potassium hydroxide supported on coconut shell activated carbon (KOH/AC) catalyst was used to produce biodiesel from waste frying oil (WFO) and methanol. The effects of reaction temperature, methanol to oil molar ratio, catalyst bed height, reaction time, and reusability of catalyst on the conversion to fatty acid methyl ester in a packed bed reactor were studied. The results showed that increasing reaction temperature, methanol/oil molar ratio, catalyst bed height, and reaction time can enhance the conversion of WFO. The optimum conditions were a reaction temperature of 60°C, methanol/oil molar ratio 25:1, catalyst bed height 250 mm, and reaction time 2 h which yielded 86.3% of the conversion. KOH/AC could be used repeatedly for 4 times without activity loss and no activation treatment was required. The fuel properties of biodiesel were determined.

Application of K-Impregnated Staghorn Coral as Catalyst in the Transesterification of Waste Cooking Oil

“…Similar observations were also observed by Kaur and Ali (2011) and Watkins et al (2004) when they introduced lithium into CaO. Despite that, the introduction of KOH has its own privilege as it helps to increase the number of basic sites (Buasri et al 2012) and basic strength of Figure S1). The peaks intensities also decreased upon the KOH addition, which probably is caused by the incorporation of K + into the CaO defect sites (Boro et al 2014).…”

Agricultural bio-waste materials as potential sustainable precursors used for activated carbon production: A review

“…Commercially activated carbon basically uses precursors such as petroleum residues, wood [77], coal, peat and lignite which are very expensive and non-renewable [78][79][80][81][82][83][84]. Therefore, in recent years, people have been focusing on the activated carbon preparation based on agricultural waste and lignocelluloses materials which are effective and very inexpensive [16,85], such as corn cob [86,87], hazelnut shell [88], pruning mulberry shoot [89], olive stone [43,90], Jojoba seed [91], Chinese fir sawdust [70], coconut shell [22,92,93], wood [93], hazelnut bagasse [94], kenaf fiber [95], bamboo [66,96], rice husk [97], petai [98], groundnut shell [14,99], paper mill sludge [100], prosopis (Prosopis juliflora) [80], coconut husk [84], Jatropha husk [101], tamarind wood [10], pistachio-nut [39], sugarcane bagasse [102], jackfruit peel [103], and many others.…”

Oyster andPyramidellaShells as Heterogeneous Catalysts for the Microwave-Assisted Biodiesel Production fromJatropha curcasOil

“…The basicity on the catalyst surface is of key importance in biodiesel production [3]. It can be seen that the heterogeneous catalyst resulted in a strong increase in the active sites [19].…”