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Abstract

In this study, process parameters for the production of biodiesel from orange seed oil using raw and thermal clay as catalyst were analyzed using randomized optimal design. The design was a response surface method (full fractional factorial) which identified the various design points as being numerical and discrete. The process optimization was performed by varying five factors, each at two different levels. The process parameters: methanol to oil molal ratio (mol/mol), catalyst concentration (weight %), reaction time (minutes), temperature (°C) and agitation speed (revolution per minutes, rpm) were the independent variables (input), while the biodiesel yield (vol/vol) was the dependent variable (response) in the optimization process. The designed matrix, 3D (three dimensional) surface plots, contour plots and analysis of variance (ANOVA), was achieved using the Design Expert Software (version 12.0), the optimum biodiesel yield was predicted and experimented to ascertain the interactive effects of parameters. The correlating regression coefficient indicated the satisfactory performance of the model for the raw and thermal clay. The experimental/actual maximum optimal biodiesel yield for the biodiesel production from the orange seed oil using raw and thermal clay as catalyst was 79.53 and 94.58% v/v while the predicted biodiesel yield was 79.55 and 92.98% v/v. The set of conditions that caused these positive effects were established at Time of 150 minutes, Temperature 65 °C, methanol /sample molal ratio of 12:1, catalyst concentration of 3.0 wt. % and agitation speed at 300 rpm respectively. Thisresults shows agreement between the actual and predicted biodiesel yield. It can be concluded that the best biodiesel yield can be achieved using thermally modified clay as catalyst.