Synthesis and Characterization of Waste Eggshell-Based Montmorillonite Clay Catalyst for Biodiesel Production from Waste Cooking Oil

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, University Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
² Centre for biofuel and Biochemical Research (CBBR), Institute for Self-sustainable Building, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia
³ Department of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Sharjah, 27272 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
⁴ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Khalid University, POB: 9004, Abha, 61413, Saudi Arabia
⁵ Institute of Chemistry, University of the Punjab, 54000 Lahore, Pakistan
⁶ Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan

^* Corresponding author: Muhammad.ayoub@utp.edu.my

Abstract

The depletion of resources and increase in demand for fossil fuel raise concerns as it is natural and non-renewable. Therefore, it will cause limitation on its availability and continuous reduction. This issue has led to the search for more economic, sustainable, and environmentally friendly alternatives which is biodiesel. The major drawback that reduces the possibility of biodiesel commercialization is the high cost of oil feedstock as it covers 75% of its total production cost. The waste cooking oil is used as feedstock in continuous transesterification as it is the primary option to lower the cost of biodiesel production. Biodiesel can be prepared using waste cooking oil and catalyst through transesterification reaction. In this research, the focus is on the utilization of chicken and quail waste eggshell to synthesize highly active Calcium Oxide (CaO)-based heterogenous catalyst with montmorillonite clay to catalyze efficient conversion of waste cooking oil to biodiesel. The formation of CaO/montmorillonite catalyst was confirmed based on the outputs from X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The physio-chemically characteristics of catalysts exhibited a BET surface area from the ranging from 9.2-9.5 m²/g and presence of around 87% of elemental calcium as constituent through XRF characterization. In addition to this, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis is used to determine the conversion of biodiesel using conventional and microwave heating method which revealed a maximum biodiesel production yield of 98%. This optimum biodiesel yield was obtained at reaction temperature, molar ratio of waste cooking oil to methanol, and catalyst amount of 60 ºC, 2 h, 1:12, 2.5 wt.% and 5 wt.% for both eggshells, respectively.