Advancement in the Utilization of Nanocatalyst for Transesterification of Triglycerides

Abstract

Biofuels are emerging as an alternative fuel to replace the conventional one. Biodiesel production is carried out by the transesterification process where catalyst plays an important role in the production of biodiesel. The reaction is catalyzed by either homogeneous catalyst or heterogeneous catalyst as the selection of suitable catalyst depends upon the amount of free fatty acid present in oil. Since past few decades focus was made on homogeneous catalyst for the production of biodiesel but slowly the trend has been changed as heterogeneous catalyst is becoming more promising catalyst for the production of biodiesel due to its properties which can overcome the problems faced by the homogeneous catalyst. Heterogeneous catalysts have been effective way to produce biodiesel but has drawback of being sensitive to free fatty acids (FFA) and low grade feed stock. This paper gives overview of the production of biodiesel with different heterogeneous catalyst consisting of carbon catalyst such as CaO based catalyst, carbon nano tubes (CNT) and graphene oxide (GO), activated carbon and solid acid catalyst. The utilization of heterogeneous catalyst provides a greener and cheaper synthesis of production of biodiesel.