Biodiesel production from date seed oil via CaO-derived catalyst from waste eggshell

Abstract

The catalyst typically employed to produce biodiesel was replaced with the CaO catalyst of eggshell derivation as this shows great potential as a substitute catalyst. The synthesised catalysts were assessed in terms of their physical and chemical qualities via BET, TGA and XRD analysis. This revealed that, besides displaying exceptional transesterification activity, the catalyst synthesised at 950 °C also offered the greatest biodiesel yield. The present work involved subjecting the inedible date seed oil-producing feedstock to the process of generating biodiesel. CaO nanoparticles of waste eggshell derivation resulting from calcination at various temperatures provided mediation for the process of transesterification. The maximum of 85% yield of biodiesel was attained based on a 1:12 oil–ethanol ratio, 4 wt.% catalyst loading and 75 °C temperature. The catalyst evaluation showed that the CaO nanoparticles were pure and of nanoscale. Furthermore, many distinct ethyl ester peaks were identified when biodiesel was analysed through gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. There was also confirmation that ethyl ester exhibited fuel-associated characteristics, which were consistent with the specifications of the international standards ASTM D-6571 and EN 14214.

Keywords:

• Eggshell
• biodiesel
• date seed oil
• calcination
• environment-friendly

Additional information

Funding

The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University for funding this work under the Research Groups Funding program grant code (NU/RG/SERC/11/2)