Use of calcium oxide in palm oil methyl ester production

Abstract

Introducing an untreated calcium oxide (CaO) as a solid heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production from palm oil by transesterification was studied in this work. The four studied parameters were methanol to oil molar ratio, CaO catalyst concentration, reaction time, and water content. The results for palm oil show that when the water content is higher than 3%wt and the amount of CaO greater than 7%wt soap formation from saponification occurs. A higher methanol to oil molar ratio requires a higher amount of CaO catalyst to provide the higher product purity. The appropriate methanol to CaO catalyst ratio is about 1.56. Commercial grade CaO gives almost the same results as AR grade CaO. In addition, reusing commercial grade CaO for about 5 to 10 repetitions without catalyst regeneration drops the percentage of methyl ester purity approximately 5 to 10%, respectively.

Keywords

• biodiesel
• palm oil
• heterogeneous catalyst
• methyl ester
• transesterification
• calcium oxide