Nickel Impregnated Calcium Oxide as A Heterogeneous Catalyst for Biodiesel Production from Cotton Seed Oil

Abstract

In present thesis, Ni impregnated CaO (Ni/CaO) was prepared in nano-crystalline form using a simple wet chemical impregnation method followed by calcination. The prepared catalyst was used for transesterification of triglycerides with methanol to yield Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). The structural analysis of Ni/CaO was investigated by powder X-ray diffraction whereas the surface morphology was determined by scanning electron microscope study. The catalytic activity of prepared Ni/CaO catalyst towards the transesterification was found to be a function of its calcination temperature and basic strength. The catalyst prepared by impregnating 1.5-wt% Ni over CaO support followed by calcination at 600 oC was found to give > 99% FAME yield in 2.75 h under the optimized reaction condition of methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1, 5 wt% catalyst, and at 65 oC reaction temperature. A pseudo first order kinetic model was applied to evaluate the kinetic parameters such as rate constant (k) and activation energy (Ea) for the transesterification of cotton seed oil.