Ultrasonic assisted transesterification of palm oil with methanol using barium oxide as catalyst / Mohd Ruzaini Ariffin

Project paper (Bachelor of of Chemical Engineering) -- Universiti Malaysia Pahang - 2012

Bibliography : p. 50-51

The energy source which we rely on is in high demand than ever before and the solution for this is Biofuel. There are different processes which can be applied to synthesize biodiesel such as direct use and blending, micro emulsion process, thermal cracking process and the most conventional way is transesterification process. The homogenous catalyst is not environmental friendly, during the glycerol separation process it is complicated because of saponification process and when without ultrasonic, the rection will take longer time. The ultrasonic-assisted transesterification of palm oil in the presence of alkaline earth metal oxide catalysts, Barium Oxide was investigated in this research. The objective of this research is to determine the feasibility of transesterification process by using heterogeneous catalyst, barium oxide (BaO) with ultrasonic bath. Ultrasonic was used to study on the reaction for effect of temperature at 40oC -60oC, alcohol to palm oil molar ratio (6:1–15:1), and catalysts loading (1–3%). The experimental procedure to produce biodiesel consist 2 major steps which were transesterification and settling. Optimum operating condition is at 50oC of temperature with molar ratio of alcohol to oil is 9:1 and 3 wt% of loading catalyst barium oxide. The highest conversion of methyl ester from this optimum operating condition is 91%