Comparative study on the transesterification of indigofera colutea and guazuma ulmifolia seed oil using and#945; Bi2O3 Fe3O4 composite catalyst

Abstract

Due to depletion and increase in the cost of non-renewable source, researcher aim for an alternative fuel which is generally produced from renewable feedstock. In India a circumstance, the need of petroleum diesel is increasing day by day therefore, there is a necessity for an alternative renewable fuel. Biodiesel, in recent times is gaining important as an alternative source for petroleum based diesel fuel. It has advantage over other fuel, such as biodegradable, non-toxic, less air pollution, easily available feed stock and produced by simple chemical process. Biodiesel is produced using both edible and non-edible sources. Edible feedstock in biodiesel production is a challenging factor, since the cost was higher and increasingly annoying tension between food security and energy crisis. Therefore there is a need to look for a low-cost, non edible alternative source for the biodiesel production. Biodiesel which is mostly produced through transesterification processes between the lipid feedstock and alcohol (methanol or ethanol) requires a catalyst for the complete conversion. The catalyst employed may be of homogeneous acid or base catalyst or heterogeneous acid or base catalyst. The homogeneous acid and base catalyst has disadvantages like soap formation during the course of reaction, catalyst separation, less stability, and reusability. Corrosion is the most important problem in using a heterogeneous acid catalyst and also, lipids with low acid value are not usually employed with such catalysts. In order to overcome the disadvantages of homogeneous acid and base catalyst, and heterogeneous acid catalyst, heterogeneous base catalyst is employed in the present work newline