Biodiesel Production From Catalyzed Transesterification of Triolein Using Calcined Clay Mineral

Biodiesel production via transesterification of triolein in excess methanol to methyl oleate over calcined clay mineral as catalyst was optimized with the Box-Behken design of response surface methodology. As-synthesized catalyst prepared from the low-cost mineral clay was used to catalyze the transesterification reaction. In this study, four main factors, including weight ratio of methanol-to-oil, reaction temperature, reaction time and catalyst loadings, were adopted in the design-of-experiment. The p-values of the obtained model and lack-of-fit were 0.99% and 9.41%, while the coefficient of determination R² was around 82.60%. The optimum condition was determined as a weight ratio of methanol-to-oil at 36.55, 63.0 °C as reaction temperature, reaction duration for 146 min and a catalyst loading as 72.0 wt% of triolein. Under this optimal condition, the conversion efficiency of triolein to methyl oleate ester could reach (93.9 ± 6.0) %, implying the practicability of this optimization.

Keywords: Biodiesel production, Kaolin, Clay catalysts, Design of experiment