Production of Biodiesel from Desert Date Seed Oil Using Heterogeneous Catalysts

Abstract

In the recent time, there is increasing research in the area of alternative fuels as the exhausts of presently used petroleum-based fuels have been identified to have negative effects on the environment. Fuels produced from plant oils and animal fats have the tendencies of replacing petro fuels since they are renewable in nature. One of these renewable fuels is biodiesel. However, the homogenous catalyst used in biodiesel production has some drawbacks such as difficulty in separation from the fuel, soap formation and corrosiveness of the product mixture. In this work, the use of heterogeneous catalyst sourced from local raw materials (kaolin and eggshell) for the production of biodiesel from oil of desert date seed has been investigated. The kaolin obtained from Alkaleri Mining Site, Bauchi, was calcined in an oven at 800 °C for 3 h. The calcined kaolin was then chemically activated. Also, the eggshell-based catalyst was produced from raw eggshells after washing, drying, grinding, sieving using 0.3 mm sieve size and calcining at 900 °C for 3 h. Furthermore, the oil content of the desert date seed, which was acquired from a local market in Bauchi, was extracted via solvent extraction in a laboratory with a yield of 42%. Then, the biodiesel was subsequently prepared by mixing the oil, methanol and catalyst in a flat bottom flask and heating the mixture for a specified period. The catalyst concentration, methanol to oil ratio and time of reaction were subsequently varied to obtain the best yield. The results obtained revealed that an optimum yield of 29% could be obtained at methanol to oil ratio of 6:1 and a reaction time of 60 min using 1.5 g of eggshell-based catalyst while an optimum yield of 22% was obtained with 0.6 g for kaolin-based catalyst at a reaction time of 60 min and methanol to oil ratio of 4:1. It is recommended that further work should be carried out to improve on the yield of the biodiesel obtained using the heterogeneous catalysts.

Kinetic and Isotherm Studies of Methyl Violet Adsorption onto Carbonized Waterlily (Nymphaea lotus) Leaves Powder

“…This continued rise in the sorption rate recorded at the initial period of the process could be partly associated with the availability of many vacant sites on the adsorbent surface that are available for the rapid adsorption and accommodation of the MV molecules. After a time lapse (90 min), the large vacant sites of RWL that were available at the beginning of the adsorption of MV from the solution had become inaccessible or exhausted [21]. Subsequently, increasing the agitation time beyond 90 mins decreases the adsorption of the methyl violet dyes.…”

“…The bulk density of the sample was determined to know the packed density of a piece. It's carried out according to the procedure reported by [21].…”

“…Dubinin-Rudushkevich Isotherm. This model is used to determine the adsorption behaviour of adsorbents towards the adsorbate using (21):…”

Use of Nature Based Materials for Textile Wastewater Treatment - A Review

“…Many of the uncarbonized adsorbents tagged as "raw" were prepared according to some of these operations, for instance, mineral adsorbents used by Assila et al [80]. Also, stems of sugar cane proposed by Batool et al [83] and desert date shells used as a precursor for activated carbon production [13] were prepared using these operations. For activated carbon production, in addition to these steps, carbonization and activation are carried out.…”

“…In fact, there are quite many experimental studies and review works on applications of natural adsorbents and coagulants in wastewater management. However, many of these experimental studies consider synthetic wastewater [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and the review works are pollutant specific and/or synthetic-solution related [28][29][30][31][32][33], or generic in terms of the type of wastewater [34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. In order, to develop systems in which these natural biodegradable chemicals can be applied as substitutes for conventionally used synthetic ones, their pollutant removal efficiencies for various industrial (non-synthetic) wastewater need to be evaluated.…”