Synthesis, characterization and biodiesel conversion of monodispersed sulfonated-silica nanoparticles

Abstract

The enhancing need of energy followed by increasing of human population to be main factors in fuels depleting. This motivated researcher over the world to solve and to utilize natural resources as bioenergy for human sustainability in future. Today, there are numerous research related to bioconversion and bioprocessing of natural resources as well as optimizing catalyst in biodiesel conversion. Design of suitable catalyst for biodiesel conversion to be a challenge in this research area. In this paper, we report of preparation, characterization and biodiesel conversion ability of heterogeneous catalyst, so called monodispersion sulfonated-silica nanoparticles (MSN). This nanoparticles was characterized by FTIR, TEM, SEM and SEM-EDAX as well as N2 adsorption-desorption. The result revealed that the catalyst prepared through CTAB templating technique has been successfully synthesized with high monodispersion nano-size. Moreover, its ability in biodiesel conversion up to 13.33% for purity percentage.