Kulchanat Prasertsit, Patthanun Phoosakul, and Sutham Sukmanee

pp. 195 - 200

Abstract

Introducing an untreated calcium oxide (CaO) as a solid heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production from palm oil
by transesterification was studied in this work. The four studied parameters were methanol to oil molar ratio, CaO catalyst
concentration, reaction time, and water content. The results for palm oil show that when the water content is higher than
3%wt and the amount of CaO greater than 7%wt soap formation from saponification occurs. A higher methanol to oil molar
ratio requires a higher amount of CaO catalyst to provide the higher product purity. The appropriate methanol to CaO catalyst
ratio is about 1.56. Commercial grade CaO gives almost the same results as AR grade CaO. In addition, reusing commercial
grade CaO for about 5 to 10 repetitions without catalyst regeneration drops the percentage of methyl ester purity approximately 5 to 10%, respectively