Catalytic performance of NaAlO2/γ-Al2O3 as heterogeneous nanocatalyst for biodiesel production: Optimization using response surface methodology

Abstract This research focused on the novel, low-cost and green NaAlO2/γ-Al2O3 heterogeneous nanocatalyst, which exhibited the excellent performance in catalyzing transesterification of palm oil with methanol for the biodiesel production. The physicochemical properties of the catalysts were characterized by different methods of the X-ray diffraction (XRD), N2 adsorption–desorption, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), Hammett indicators, field emission scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometer (FESEM-EDS) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The transesterification parameters, such as the methanol to oil molar ratio, catalyst content and reaction temperature, were optimized using the central composite design (CCD) based the response surface methodology (RSM), where the maximum biodiesel yield of 97.65% was achieved at the methanol to oil molar ratio of 20.79:1, catalyst content of 10.89 wt% and reaction temperature of 64.72 °C. The biodiesel yield was dropped to 52.16% for the third reused cycle due to the leaching of the active sites into the liquid phase. However, the spent catalyst could be effectively regenerated with a small number of active sites and the regenerated catalyst maintained the biodiesel yield of 93.29% for the sixth reused cycle. The properties of the produced biodiesel were in accordance with the ASTM D 6751 standard. Also, the biodiesel production process was environmental friendly based on the green chemistry metrics.