Design-Based Response Surface Methodology in Optimizing the Dry Washing Purification Process of Biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oil

Abstract

Biodiesel is an alternative renewable energy source derived from plants or animals. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions mostly caused by fossil fuels and threatens the environment. Furthermore, biodiesel is clean energy from a mixture of fatty acids and short-chain alcohols, such as esters, produced from oil waste through the transesterification and purification of the dry washing process using magnesium silicate hydrate. This study designed the Response Surface Methodology with the Box Behnken Design consisting of 3 independent variables, namely magnesium silicate hydrate concentration, temperature, and production time required to predict the optimum conditions of biodiesel. This result showed that the biodiesel produced is 85-94.50% with a minimum yield of 85.171% at a 1.6748% adsorbent concentration, 65℃ operating temperature, and 10 minutes. Furthermore, the validation result with the T-Test is achieved by an average of 85.01%.