Transesterification of Neem Oil Using Na Ion-Doped Waste Fishbone

Abstract

High cost of biodiesel produced from various known sources till date has focused the attention of researchers on low cost and renewable raw materials such as nonedible oils and waste cooking oils. Catalyst plays a significant role on the yield and quality of biodiesel. Heterogeneous catalysts are better over conventional homogeneous catalysts as they can be easily recovered from the reaction mixture by filtration and can be reused after activation, thereby making the process economically viable. Heterogeneous catalysts are mostly solid and can be prepared from various materials such as industrial wastes (e.g., red mud, aluminum dross, fly slag, blast furnace, and steel slag) and natural wastes (e.g., chicken egg shells, rice husks, fish skeletal, shells of crab, oyster, snail, shrimp, etc.). The use of such wastes to develop catalysts can be a win-win situation as this takes care of the waste disposal issues. Current focus is to develop catalysts from natural sources. In the present work, heterogeneous catalyst was developed from one natural hydroxyapatite, i.e., cooked fish bone and was doped with Na ion. Doping of metalloid ions and calcining not only results in higher surface area but also increases the ion exchange capability. The catalyst has been prepared employing wet impregnation method. This developed catalyst was used for transesterified neem oil to produce biodiesel with a acid value conversion closer to 96.7 %. The final transesterified product was analyzed and the parametric effects on the acid value conversion were studied.