Synthesis and characterization of titanium dioxide (TiO2) Nanomaterials for biodiesel production

This project studies the optimization for parameters affecting the biodiesel production and synthesized the mixed metal oxides catalyst which is CeO2-TiO2. The feedstock used is crude palm oil which undergone the oil analysis prior the transesterification process. The FFA of crude palm oil is 0.11%, which is readily below 2%. Therefore, one-step transesterification is applicable. Based on the optimization using Response Surface Methodology (RSM), the optimized conditions are reaction temperature is 55oC, methanol to oil ratio is 11.05:1, 1.0 wt% catalyst concentration and reaction time is 60 minutes using NaOH as catalyst. The yield is 53.2%. The transesterification of palm oil is repeated under the same conditions using synthesized catalyst which yield 59.7% biodiesel. The CeO2-TiO2 is characterized using FTIR, SAP, VPFESEM and Raman Spectrometer. The reusability of the catalyst also is tested which shows that it can be recycled for about 5 runs with the decrement of yield not more than 3% for every run. This proves the ability of heterogeneous catalyst to be reused in more than one cycle. Besides, the catalyst dosage and reaction time effect on biodiesel yield are also tested. The results show that as the dosage of catalyst and reaction time increase, the yield also increases. In addition, experimental-simulation comparison is done by using ASPEN HYSYS software which shows slight different of 2.3%.