Room-Temperature Conversion of Soybean Oil and Poultry Fat to Biodiesel Catalyzed by Nanocrystalline Calcium Oxides

Abstract

A promising route for the production of biodiesel (fatty acid methyl esters, FAMES) via transesterification of soybean oil (SBO) and poultry fat with methanol in quantitative conversions at room temperature has been developed using nanocrystalline calcium oxides as catalysts. Under the same conditions, laboratory-grade CaO gave only 2% conversion in the case of SBO, and there was no observable reaction with poultry fat. The soybean oil/methanol ratio in our protocol is 1:27. With our most active catalyst, deactivation was observed after eight cycles with SBO and after three cycles with poultry fat. Deactivation may be associated with one or more of the following factors: the presence of organic impurities or adventitious moisture and enolate formation by the deprotonation of the carbon alpha to the carboxy group in the triglyceride or FAMES. The biodiesel from our protocol meets the ASTM D-874 standard for sulfated ash for both substrates.

Transesterification of Canola Oil to Biodiesel Using CaO/Talc Nanopowder as a Mixed Oxide Catalyst

“…Calcium-based catalysts are well-known amongst solid materials for the transesterification reaction of oils and alcohols. Nonetheless, they suffer from leaching problems necessitating further refinement to remove Ca contaminants from the production [17][18][19][20]. To improve the performance and reliability of the calcium-based catalysts, calcium was mixed with other metal oxides featured as an active support [21,22].…”

Synthesis of clamshell derived Ca(OH)2 nano-particles via simple surfactant-hydration treatment

“…Some researchers showed that CaO catalyst in nano-dimension will render amazing level of performance in terms of product selectivity and catalytic reactivity. This includes the transesterification reaction of triglyceride with methanol [13,14], and reacted as chemisorbents for toxic gases, chlorinated or phosphorus-containing compounds and pollutant in water [15,16]. CaO is capable of providing high surface area-to volume ratio in nano-crystalline structure, which is five times more in the number of active sites per unit area [17], thus offering higher basicity of catalyst which shall have positive effects on various reactions.…”

Carbon-Based Catalysts for Biodiesel Production—A Review

“…Heterogeneous catalysis using a solid base catalyst for the transesterification of TGs shares many of the same properties as the homogeneous base catalysis such as mild operating conditions, a fast rate of reaction and a high conversion [28,29,[32][33][34]. However, heterogeneous base catalysis has a distinct advantage over the traditional homogeneous base catalysis.…”