International Conference on Recent Advancements in Materials

(ICRAM) 2015
Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences ISSN: 0974-2115
Studies on Mixed Waste Vegetable Oil for Production of Biodiesel by
using Mg/AlNO3 and KOH as Catalyst
A.Sakthi Saravanan1, S. Periasamy2, P. Sivakumar*3, B. Vijayakumar3,
V. Santhosh3, Muralidharan.N.G3.
1
Department of Petroleum Engineering, JCT College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, India-641105.
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government College of Technology - Coimbatore, India-641403.
3
Department of Petrochemical Engineering, RVS College of Engineering and Technology, India-641602.
*Corresponding author: E-mail: teqipphysics@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This research work is mainly focused on transesterification of mixed waste vegetable oil using both KOH
and Mg/AlNO3 catalysts. Mg/AlNO3 catalysts were synthesized by co-precipitation method. The transesterification
reaction was performed in batch experiments at 50-80 °C temperature, 3:1-12:1 molar ratio of alcohol to oil, and
the catalyst concentration 0.5-2.0 wt.% with various reaction times. Results shows that KOH shows 93.12%
biodiesel yield [0.75 wt.% KOH, methanol: oil molar ratio 8:1, reaction time 50 min and reaction temperature
60 °C] whereas Mg/AlNO3 catalysts shows 87.26% biodiesel yield [1.75 wt.% Mg/AlNO3, methanol: oil molar
ratio 12:1, reaction time 4 hr, reaction temperature 60 °C]. Homogeneous catalyst requires lesser time for complete
conversion of biodiesel because it completely dissolve in alcohol whereas heterogeneous catalyst requires higher
reaction time for complete conversion of biodiesel. Thus KOH is an effective catalyst when compared to Mg/AlNO3
for the production of biodiesel from mixed waste vegetable oil.

KEY WORDS: Transesterification, Biodiesel, KOH, Mg/AlNO3

1. INTRODUCTION
Reservoirs of fossil fuels are depleting day by day which results in search of alternate energy sources.
Different renewable energy sources like solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy, energy from biomass etc.,
can be used as alternate energy sources among these biodiesel seems to be more efficient. Biodiesel has high
lubricity and low-emissions fuel. Vegetable oils can be used directly or blended with mineral diesel to fuel in
existing, unmodified diesel engines (Purushothaman and Nagarajan, 2009). Biodiesel is designed for complete
compatibility with conventional diesel and can be blend of vegetable oils with conventional diesel in any ratio,
from additive levels to 100 % biodiesel (Demirbas and Balat, 2006). The use of waste vegetable oil, rather than
fresh oil, to provide biodiesel is an efficient way to reduce the raw material price as a result of waste cooking
vegetable oil is estimated to be about half the value of fresh oil. This waste cooking vegetable oil is processed into
Biodiesel by using various catalysts like, homogeneous, heterogeneous. Homogenous catalyst (KOH) is completely
miscible in alcohol and therefore the reaction will be very fast with higher biodiesel yield than heterogeneous
catalyst. Due to corrosion issues, homogeneous catalyst cannot be use in long term purpose and therefore the
separation of waste stream is additionally very difficult one. Here, Heterogeneous catalyst (Mg/AlNO3) eliminates
such problems caused by homogeneous catalyst (Deng, 2011).

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Materials: Different waste vegetable oils were obtained from the local markets. Waste Sunflower oil and palm
oil is purchased from local oil mill. Waste gingili oil, castor oil, and ground nut oil were collected from local market
in Coimbatore. The collected waste oils were mixed equally (by weight) to arrange mixed waste vegetable oil.
Totally 2.1 kg of oil has been used for the optimization of biodiesel production method. Al (NO3)3.9H2O of 99.8 %
purity, Mg (NO3)2.6H2O of 99.8 % purity and Na2CO3 of 98 % purity were purchased from Nice chemicals. Methyl
alcohol of 99.9 % purity was purchased from SD Fine Chemicals. The catalysts like KOH pellets of 98.2 % purity
were purchased from Nice Chemicals.
2.2. Preparation of Mg/AlNO3 Catalyst: Al (NO3)3.9H20 (0.01mol) and Mg (NO3)2.6H2O (0.05 mol) were
dissolved in de-ionized water (70 ml). A second de-ionized water solution (100 ml) of Na2CO3 (0.1 mol) and NaOH
(0.35 mol) was prepared. The primary solution was slowly additional to the second. The ensuing mixture was
heated at 65 °C below automatic pressure induced in a closed reaction vessel for 18 hr. After the heating process,
the slurry was cooled to room temperature, washed with de-ionized water up to pH 9 and dried at 110 °C for 18 hr.
Hydrotalcite catalyst is activated by calcinations at a rate of 2 ºC/min until 500°C and maintained for 2 hr in a flow
of air. Later on, samples were cooled in dry nitrogen and stored.

JCHPS Special Issue 11: October 2015 www.jchps.com Page 77

 International Conference on Recent Advancements in Materials
(ICRAM) 2015
Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences ISSN: 0974-2115
2.3. Transesterification Reaction Procedure: The transesterification of waste mixed vegetable oil to biodiesel
was carried out in a 250 ml three-necked round-bottomed flask equipped with a mechanical stirrer and a water-
cooled condenser. The flask was loaded with waste mixed vegetable oil, heated to the required temperature (e.g.,
60 °C), and therefore the desired quantity of methyl alcohol and catalyst without preheating were added to begin
the transesterification with stirring for the required reaction time. When completion of the reaction, catalyst and
excess methyl alcohol were recovered by centrifugation at 4500 rpm for 15 min and distillation respectively.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Catalyst Optimization: The amount of alkali catalyst KOH and Mg/AlNO3 heterogeneous catalyst used
affects the conversion efficiency of the process. The catalyst amount is varied in the range of 0.5-2.0 wt.% for
seven different values (0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0 wt.% KOH). The effect of the both catalyst amount
on the yield is shown in Fig. 1. The optimum was achieved using 0.75 wt.% of KOH, which produced an 86.33%
yield and 1.75 wt.% of Mg/AlNO3, which produced 78.63% yield of biodiesel. Further catalyst concentration
increased beyond the optimum dosage, biodiesel yield will be decreased. Basicity of the catalyst used because of
the base components only increases the biodiesel yield when compared with acid catalysts.
3.2. Reaction Temperature Optimization: The effect of reaction temperature studied at temperature ranges of
50, 60, 70 and 80 °C for both KOH and Mg/AlNO3 catalysts. Fig. 2 shows ester conversion with regard to the
reaction temperature of each catalyst were enhanced with increase in temperature the conversion takes place at a
faster rate (Ma and Hanna, 1999). Thus the optimum reaction temperature was 60 °C with the optimum biodiesel
yield were 92.11% and 82.56% for KOH and Mg/AlNO3 catalysts.
3.3. Reaction Time Optimization: According to several researchers, the biodiesel yields are directly proportional
to the reaction times used. The effect of the time on the yield is shown in Fig. 3 & 3a for homogeneous and
heterogeneous catalyst respectively. The reaction time was studied at different time intervals. Results obtained
from this research with waste mixed vegetable oil obtained that about 50 min for KOH and 4 hr for Mg/AlNO 3
with the optimum biodiesel yield were 90.47% and 85.35%. If increased reaction time, biodiesel yield was getting
decreased. Therefore, the heterogeneous catalyst is less solubility than homogeneous one. So, prolonged time
required to get reacted the oil with alcohol in the presence of heterogeneous catalyst.
3.4. Alcohol Optimization: The molar ratio of alcohol to waste mixed vegetable oil is one among the necessary
factors that have an effect on the conversion efficiency as well as cost of bio-diesel. Typically alcohol to oil ratio
will increase and the biodiesel yield also increase up to the particular molar ratio (Freedman B, 1986). Fig. 4 show
parameters used like the molar ratio of methanol and oil ratio with 0.75 wt.% of KOH and 1.75 wt.% of Mg/AlNO3
catalysts, and 60 °C reaction temperature. The maximum conversion efficiency is achieved at the molar ratio of 8:1
for KOH in 50 min was 93.26% and 12:1 for Mg/AlNO3 catalyst in 4 hr was 87.26%.

95
90 94
85 92
KOH
% yield

90
%yield

80
88
75 KOH 86 Mg/Al-NO3
70 84
Mg/AlNO3
65 82
60 80
78
0.5 1 1.5 2
30 50 70 90
Wt.% Temperature (deg. C)

Figure.1.Percentage yield of ester vs. catalyst wt.% Figure.2.Percentage yield of ester vs. temperature

93
92 100
%yield

91 95
%yield

90
90
89 Mg/Al
88 KOH 85 NO3
87 80
10 30 50 70 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time (min) Time (min)

Figure.3.Percentage yield of ester vs. time Figure.3a.Percentage yield of ester vs. time
JCHPS Special Issue 11: October 2015 www.jchps.com Page 78
 International Conference on Recent Advancements in Materials
(ICRAM) 2015
Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences ISSN: 0974-2115

100
95

%yield
90
85
KOH
80 Mg/AlNO3
75
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Molar ratio

Figure.4.Percentage yield of ester vs. methanol oil ratio

4. CONCLUSION
In this research homogeneous catalyst KOH was effective for the production of methyl ester from mixed
waste vegetable oil than heterogeneous catalyst Mg/AlNO3. For homogeneous catalyst, studied the optimum
parameter for KOH was 0.75 wt.% KOH, methanol: oil molar ratio 8:1, reaction time 50 min and reaction
temperature 60 °C to yield biodiesel was 93.12% and for heterogeneous catalyst Mg/AlNO3 was 1.75 wt.%
Mg/AlNO3, methanol: oil molar ratio 12:1, reaction time 4 hr, reaction temperature 60 °C to yield biodiesel was
87.26%. Therefore, Homogeneous catalyst requires lesser time for complete conversion of biodiesel because it
completely dissolve in alcohol whereas heterogeneous catalyst requires higher reaction time for complete
conversion of biodiesel.

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