Biodiesel Production from Waste Cooking Oil Using KCL/CaO as Catalyst

Abstract

A KCl-doped CaO solid alkali catalyst was obtained in a wet impregnation method and treated under microwave irradiation to obtain enhanced stability and activity. Then the catalyst was successfully used in the transesterification of refined waste cooking oil with methanol to produce biodiesel. A uniform design experimentation U7 (7 4 ) and regression analysis by DPS software were used to obtain the optimum conditions of transesterification at the lowest cost. Temperature 338K, catalyst amount 4.5% (wt./wt.oil) and methanol/oil molar ratio 9:1, after 90 min reaction, the fatty acid methyl esters yield reached 91.28% and the purity was over 99%, which was up to the national standard for B-100 biodiesel.