Biodiesel production using ionic liquid as catalyst

Lee, Yee Sin (2023) Biodiesel production using ionic liquid as catalyst. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

The palm oil industries produce large amounts of low-grade oil wastes, known as palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD). PFAD contains high composition of free fatty acids (FFAs) which can be used to synthesis biodiesel through esterification. The esterification of FFA is conventionally carried out using strong acid the catalyst, to produce fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), commonly known as biodiesel. This research aimed to produce biodiesel from the esterification of PFAD using an ionic liquid (IL) catalyst, specifically 1-butyl3-methylimidazolium chloride [BMIM]Cl. The research work began by characterizing [BMIM]Cl using fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Subsequently, a parameter study of the esterification of PFAD and methanol using [BMIM]Cl as catalyst was carried out with the aid of design of experiment (DOE) coupled with response surface methodology (RSM) and central composite design (CCD) to optimize the process. The studied parameters were temperature (45 – 65 °C), catalyst dosage (2 – 6 wt%), methanol to PFAD ratio (5 – 25), and reaction time (1 – 5 h). ANOVA analysis revealed that temperature had the largest effect to the PFAD conversion, followed by catalyst dosage and reaction time. The methanol to PFAD ratio was found to have an insignificant effect on the PFAD conversion. The optimization was then performed based on the maximization of conversion of PFAD. It was observed that an optimum PFAD conversion of 40.24 % was achieved at a temperature of 60 °C, with a catalyst dosage of 5 wt% and a methanol to PFAD ratio of 19.6 in 4 hours of reaction time. It can be concluded that the esterification of PFAD using [BMIM]Cl as catalyst can be an alternative method to produce biodiesel.

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