Strontium ion-modified hydroxyapatite as basic catalyst in transesterification for biodiesel production

Abstract

With the continuous discovery and development of new technology comes a parallel increase in the demand for energy The current main source of energy of the world today comes from fossil fuels which are natural finite resources and which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions contributing to current environmental problems such as climate change Biodiesel proves to be a promising alternative to current diesel fuel since it is considered to be non-toxic renewable and ready-for-use with the existing engines Hydroxyapatite (Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) has been a material of interest in various fields including waste water treatment biomedical materials and catalysis due to its desireable properties such as structure thermal stability adsoroption capacity and ion-exchange ability This mineral is abundant in nature which makes it attractive for use in different applications HAp was successfully synthesized from waste eggshells via two synthesis routes Sr-doped HAp was produced from wet chemical process wherein Sr precursor were added upon HAp synthesis On the other hand HAp synthesis was followed by loading of the Sr precursor via wet impregnation method XRD SEM-EDS ICP and BET analysis were used to characterize the synthesized catalysts 1H NMR Spectroscopy was used to quantify biodiesel conversion yield Transesterification reactions of soybean oil with 5 wt % catalyst loading and 9:1 methanol-to-oil ratio at 65°C for 6 hours achieved a maximum biodiesel conversion yield of 92 44%

Date of Award	2017 Aug 16
Original language	English
Supervisor	Wen-Dung Hsu (Supervisor)