Reaction optimization of biodiesel production from synthesized W/K/CaO catalyst using food waste: A sustainable waste to energy solution

Abstract

The advancement of using food waste for energy conversion has attracted considerable attention among researchers. The present study investigates the sustainable way of biodiesel production using food waste as a green and innovative solution that aids in both the preservation of the environment and the efficiency of resource utilization. In this work, the sodium salt of tungstic acid and K⁺ were coated over eggshells-derived CaO to convert the waste cooking oil (WCO) to biodiesel. The synthesized catalyst has been subjected to various characterization techinques such as XRD, FT-IR and SEM-EDX analysis. Response surface methodology approach is used to optimize the important parameters of transesterification reaction. The optimized conditions to transesterify waste cooking oil with synthesized W/K/CaO is found to be of 4 wt% of synthesized W/K/CaO catalyst, 13.7:1 ratio of methanol: oil, 90 min reaction duration and 60℃ reaction temperature. The maximum biodiesel yield of 98.04% was obtained using the optimized conditions. Gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis and NMR studies were used to characterize the produced biodiesel. Finally, the reusability of the catalyst has also been discussed.