Transesterification of waste cooking oil to biodiesel using γ-alumina coated on zeolite pellets

In this work,a cheap and environmentally friendly heterogeneous catalyst was developed to catalyze the transesterification of waste cooking oil to fatty acid methyl ester (fame),commonly known as biodiesel. nano γ-alumina powder was synthesized through sol-gel method and loaded on the zeolite support,which was synthesized from natural aluminosilicate minerals. the successful synthesis of nano γ-alumina powder was confirmed by xrd,ftir and bet analyses. to produce biodiesel,waste cooking oil was purified and used as the substrate. the influence of catalyst loading,methanol to oil mass ratio,reaction temperature and time on the conversion of triglyceride to fame was investigated. maximum triglyceride conversion of 86.43% was achieved at the catalyst loading of 2.2% (ww-1),methanol to oil ratio of 60% (ww-1),reaction temperature of 338 k and reaction time of 4 h.