| Popis: |
Biodiesel is a clean-burning and renewable substitute for conventional diesel. It is produced particularly from vegetable oils. It’s nontoxic and biodegradable, and it can also be used in most diesel equipments with no or only minor modifications. In this study we focused our work on the elaboration of heterogeneous solid base catalysts (KF/MgO and KF/CaO). The catalysts are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area. The heterogeneous base-catalyzed transesterification is applied for producing a biodiesel starting from a nonedible and abundant vegetable source in the Mediterranean Basin such as Pistacia lentiscus (PL). The catalysts are compared in terms of activities in the transesterification process under suitable conditions (reaction temperature of 50 °C, methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1, catalyst loading of 1 wt.%, and reaction time of 2 h). For the two catalysts, a higher than 90% conversion was found. |
