Design of Esterification Reaction Using Activated of Natural Zeolit to Produced Biodiesel from Crude Palm Oil (CPO) by Means of Esterification-Transesterification of Method

Abstract

Oils with high amount of free fatty acid (FFA) such as crude palm oil are becoming one of the promosing alternatives to produce biodiesel;due, principipally, to it low cost. However, because of the presence of FFA, the conventional basic homogenous catalyst should not be the used with the aim to avoid the production of soaps. The use of activated of natural zeolit to perform the esterification reaction into biodiesel is studied in this work. Optimization of reaction condition such as molar ratio of alcohol to oil, reaction temperature and catalyst loading was performed to minimize FFA using response surface methodology (RSM). The RSM suggested that a catalyst of loading 1.59 %; molar ratio of alcohol to oil 23.41:1 and time of reaction 170 minutes were optimum for minimizing FFA. The esterification of FFA using this heterogeneous catalyst appears as a great alternative to esterify oils with high amount of FFA; in this case, the final conversion of FFA achieved was around 64.23 %.