Scientific African (Jun 2024)
Production of biodiesel from biocatalysis of agro-wastes in acidic environment
Abstract
Due to the disposal challenges posed by the availability of agro wastes, nano-catalysts have been reported used the synthesis from the wastes for the biodiesel. Therefore, this study employed the catalyst derived from the acidified corn stock for the synthesis of biodiesel from agricultural waste oilseeds of Carica papaya. The oil was extracted from the seed via a continuous process, the quality of the oil was determined, and the biodiesel was synthesized using nanocatalysts developed from the corn stock. Catalyst characterization was carried out using electric potential charge (ZETA), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), x-ray fluorescence (XRF-FS), and brunauer-emmett-teller (BET) analysis. Process optimization was carried out by considering three variables in both the cases of oil extraction and biodiesel production via RSM-BBD and ANN-GA. The produced biodiesel was quantified by property determination, and the catalyst reusability test was carried out to ascertain the strength of the developed catalyst.Results reflected that the seed was rich in oil (44.14 % (wt./wt.)), and the oil was acidic (acid value = 3.680 mg KOH/g Oil). The produced acidified catalyst from corn pods showed the presence of heteroatoms, including mica-phylosilicates in the corn pod, but carbon produced a higher concentration (71.45 %wt.). The validated optimum biodiesel yield of 99.06 % (wt./wt.) at a cat. amount of 3.96 (g), reaction time of 72.42 min, and EOH/OMR of 1:5.99 were recorded. The qualities of biodiesel were in conformity with the biodiesel recommended standard. The catalyst reusability test showed the developed catalyst to possess a stable adsorption capacity, charge imbalance, and non-expanding behavior during transesterification.This study concluded that RSM-BBD with cubic polynomial techniques shows superiority over ANN-GA in conversion of Carica papaya seed oil to biodiesel in a catalytically acidified environment with corn pods, and the produced biodiesel could serve as an alternative environmentally friendly fuel.
