Unlocking the future of sustainable energy: biodiesel synthesis from non-edible feedstocks powered by eco-friendly nano-magnetic catalysts

Abstract

Biodiesel is one of the biofuels that has been examined the most in the research and has a promising future as a replacement for fossil fuels. A catalyst is often needed to increase the manufacture of biodiesel, which is produced by transesterification or esterification. A number of difficulties with product separation, a significant amount of wastewater effuents released from the downstream filtration, and the unwanted soap created as a result of the reaction between feedstock with a high FFA composition and homogeneous base catalysts are typical problems faced by commercially available homogeneous catalysts. The use of heterogeneous magnetic catalysts in FAME production has become a focus of interest for many researchers due to its efficient catalyst separation, high catalyst recovery rate, and shorter processing time. The development of magnetic acid and base heterogeneous catalysts, as well as their efficiency in producing biodiesel, were the primary subjects of this study. Additionally, several techniques for producing magnetic particles were evaluated. Method of heterogeneous catalysts in promoting biodiesel synthesis through transesterification procedure was also investigated. To generate more self-sustaining biodiesel industries, further investigation is needed to employ waste materials as a basis for the manufacturing of heterogeneous magnetic acid and base catalysts.

Review Highlights

• Magnetic catalysts employed for FAME production.

• Narration provided an in-depth explanation of designing strategies for magnetic catalyst.

• Reusability of magnetic catalysts was studied.

Keywords:

• Biofuels
• biodiesel
• magnetic nanocomposites
• waste materials

Authors’ contributions

Shahid Nawaz: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Farrukh Jamil: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision. Parveen Akhter: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Validation, Resources, Writing - review & editing. Khaliq Majeed: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Aldona Balčiūnaitė: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Mian Hamood-ur-Rehman: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Iqrash Shafiq: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Ashfaq Ahmed: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Abrar Inayat: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Murid Hussain: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Funding acquisition, Writing - review & editing.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Data availability statement

Data will be made available on request from the authors.