Transesterification of triglyceride over Ni impregnated Zn/CaO nanocatalysts

Abstract A series of Ni loaded Zn/CaO mixed oxides were prepared by wet impregnation process and their catalytic activities were investigated for transesterification of triglyceride. The physico-chemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by powder XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-NMR and temperature programmed desorption (TPD) studies. The prepared catalyst was successfully employed for the transesterification of waste cottonseed oil (WCO) having 4.4 wt% of free fatty acid contents. The catalytic amount of 5 wt% Ni/Zn/CaO catalyst (with respect to WCO), shown higher conversion (∼98%) of biodiesel compared to other wt% of catalysts. The catalyst was recovered from the reaction mixture by simple filtration and reused for three consecutive runs.