Calcium oxide from limpet as a heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production

Biodiesel has become more attractive due to the depleting fossil fuel resources and environmental issues. Chemically biodiesel is known as fatty acid methyl esters which can be produced from vegetable oils and animal fats. Biodiesel is usually produced by transesterification of raw materials with methanol in the presence of catalyst. Finding a proper catalyst has an important role on the biodiesel characteristics and the price. Therefore in this research limpet used as an inexpensive and environmentally friendly heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production which is distributed in large quantities in Iran. Limpet is rich in calcium carbonate that converted to calcium oxide at a calcination temperature higher than 0101 1C. The resulting CaO catalyst was characterized using X-ray diffraction. The variables investigated were catalyst concentration (01-%1), oil-methanol molar ratio (0:0-0:00) and reaction time (2h-8h). The maximum yield of biodiesel was %84.81 at following optimal conditions: an amount of catalyst at %1 w/w, a molar ratio of oil-methanol at 0:% and a reaction period of 8h. The physical and chemical properties of biodiesel were evaluated by fuel standard tests and the results were compared with EN 0.2. and ASTM D8%00 standards. Overall, limpet is a promising catalyst for biodiesel production and large cultivation will help to reduce the product cost.

Keywords:

biodiesel , limpet , catalyst , transesterification , optimization