Characterization and Optimization of Biodiesel Produced from Palm Oil Using Acidified Clay Heterogeneous Catalyst

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to synthesize and characterizethe production of biodiesel from palm oil. Acid activated heterogeneous catalyst was used in the synthesis process. The clay was characterized using SEM. The effect of process variables such as reaction temperature, catalyst weight and oil to alcohol ratio were investigated. Response surface methodology (RSM) was utilized in the design of experiment and modeling of the biodiesel production process. The biodiesel was characterized and compared to standard properties of biodiesel. The result showed that H2SO4 activation increased the surface area of the clay. In the RSM modeling, the maximum biodiesel yield obtained was 82.99% at reaction time of 5 hours, temperature of 140oC, methanol to oil ratio of 10:1, and catalyst weight of 3.6 wt%. Quadratic model with correlation coefficient of 0.9657, best described the experimental data. The physio-chemical properties of the biodiesel synthesized were comparable to the properties of standard biodiesel. This study has shown that clay heterogeneous catalyst can be used to catalyst the synthesis of biodiesel from palm oil. The finding of this study is recommended for solving some of the challenges posed by the use of fossil fuel.

ANFIS, ANN, and RSM modeling of moisture content reduction of cocoyam slices

“…The normal plot of residuals indicated that the residuals points were closely aligned within the straight line with few points lying outside the diagonal in a reasonable manner, which showed that the residuals were normally distributed. This relationship is significant because it ensures that the predicted values will show little deviation from the experimental values (Ezedinma et al., 2021; Ijeoma et al., 2021). The external residual plots showed that the residuals aligned closely to the null point within a distance of ±2.1.…”

“…Figure7showed two factor interactions of the drying parameters obtained in both the RSM and ANFIS modeling. The three-D (3D) surface and contour plots can be used to visualize and interpret the nature of the synergetic relationship between two combined experimental parameters and the response(Ijeoma et al, 2021). The generation of the contour plots involved the variation of two input factors within the range of experiments while keeping the other constant at its null point.…”