Activated Carbon Supported Potassium Catalyst for Transesterification of Palm Oil

  • Mr Saeid Baroutian, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, Malaysia
  • Prof Dr Mohamed Kheireddine Aroua, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, Malaysia
  • Dr Abdul Aziz Abdul Raman, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, Malaysia
  • Prof Dr Nik Meriam Nik Sulaiman, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, Malaysia

    • Biodiesel is a promising source of energy. It is renewable and biodegradable diesel fuel with less harmful emissions than petroleum-based diesel fuel and can be used pure form or blended with petroleum diesel fuel. of the several methods available for producing biodiesel, transesterification of natural oils and fats is currently the method of choice. As the world's largest palm oil producer and exporter, biodiesel can be produced from this raw material in Malaysia. In this work, transesterification of RBD palm oil using activated carbon supported potassium was studied. The reactions were conducted in 500 mL batch reactor at atmospheric pressure. The activated carbon supported potassium catalyst exhibited good catalytic activity. Influence of various parameter such as catalyst loading, catalyst dosage, reaction temperature and time on the catalytically behaviors of activated carbon supported potassium catalyst have been investigated. The suitable catalyst loading was about 15 %, and the optimum catalyst dosage existed for catalytic activity, which was about 5 %.