Parametric study on the production of biodiesel from waste sunflower oil using Zeolitic tuff based catalyst

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the potential of zeolitic based catalysts for biodiesel production from waste sunflower vegetable oil. The zeolite-based catalyst was prepared by two impregnation steps. The obtained catalyst was examined for the transesterification reaction. The effect of operating variables and the synergetic effects between those variables were investigated. Other parameters such as catalyst impregnation time, stirring speed and catalyst particle size were also studied. Furthermore, the physical and chemical properties of the oil and the produced biodiesel were measured. Nearly complete 100% conversion and 96.7% yield were achieved using 11.5 MeOH/oil molar ratio, 6.4% catalyst dosage, at 50°C reaction temperature and reaction time of 2 hours. The properties of the obtained biodiesel are in agreement with the values specified by US and EU standards.

KEYWORDS:

• Biodiesel
• Zeolitic tuff
• catalyst
• transesterification
• waste vegetable oil

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Noor Al-Jammal

Noor Al-Jammal is a Ph.D. student Noor Aljammal has received both her Bachelors (2009) and M.Sc. (2015) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Jordan, Jordan. She has interests in green technology and sustainable development. Her engineering research during her master is in the area of biofuel, with emphasis on the design of heterogeneous catalysts from natural zeolitic tuff. She carried out scientific research for three years as a research assistant, distributed between Royal Jordanian Scientific Society (RSS) and Pannonia University in Hungary. Her research focused on developing adsorbents from natural materials like zeolite, diatomite, and carbon-based material, for diesel desulphurization and for oil spill response. Over her career, she has worked on two major oil and gas projects, where their scale, nature, and value are of great importance. Her recent research activities in the Environmental & Energy Research Center at Ghent University-Global Campus (GUGC) focus on the kinetics of biomass conversion over Metal-Organic Framework (MOFs) as heterogeneous catalysts and it aims at increasing scientific understanding of bifunctional catalysis in biomass valorization.

Zayed Al-Hamamre

Zayed Al-Hamamre is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Jordan-Amman-Jordan. He received his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering in 2000 from The Jordan University of Science and Technology – Jordan and the M.Sc. in 2003 from Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen – Nürnberg, Germany. He received his doctorate in chemical Engineering from TU Bergakademie Freiberg – Freiberg, Germany. His research interests include the transformation of biomass into fuels, chemicals, and high added value materials.

Tatjána Juzsakova

Dr. Tatjána Juzsakova was born in Russia. She received her M.Sc. degree in Ecological Engineering from Ural State Polytechnic University, Russia in 1999 and earned Ph. D. degree in 2007 at University of Veszprém (Pannonia), Hungary. She is an associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Engineering of University of Pannonia, Hungary. The main fields of her research are heterogeneous catalysis, focused on studies of model reactions (e.g. hydrogenation, hydrocracking, deNOx), investigation of physical-chemical properties of solid catalysts and adsorbents.