Preparation and characterisation of Cao nanoparticle for biodiesel production from mixture of edible and non-edible oils

Abstract

Calcium nitrate (CaO/CaN) and snail shell (CaO/SS) were successfully utilised for the development of CaO nanoparticle and used in biodiesel synthesis from a mixture of edible and non-edible oils. These solid base heterogeneous catalysts were characterised by FT-IR, XRD, and TGA techniques. Debye-Scherer equation also calculated the average crystalline size of a nanometer. The comparable catalytic activity of CaO/CaN and CaO/SS catalyst was also studied for biodiesel production and found the increment of biodiesel yield from 88% to 92% using CaO/SS. The used optimum reaction conditions were: 6 wt% catalyst loading, 65ºC reaction temperature, 12:1 methanol: oil molar ratio and four hr of reaction time. This research shows that developed basic nano catalyst from snail shell exhibit good catalytic activity. Five reusability runs were also done and found that no loss of catalytic activity up to five runs.