Nano Nickel-Zirconia: An Effective Catalyst for the Production of Biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oil

Mohammed Rafi Shaik, Mujeeb Khan, J. V.Shanmukha Kumar, Muhammad Ashraf, Majad Khan, Mufsir Kuniyil, Mohamed E. Assal, Abdulrahman Al-Warthan, Mohammed Rafiq H. Siddiqui, Aslam Khan, Muhammad Nawaz Tahir*, Syed Farooq Adil*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The utilization of heterogeneous catalysts during the production of biodiesel potentially minimize the cost of processing due to the exclusion of the separation step. The (X wt%)Ni–ZrO2 (where X = 10, 25 and 50) catalysts prepared through a hydrothermal process were tested for the production of biodiesel by the transesterification of waste cooking oil (WCO) with methanol. The influences of various reaction parameters were systematically optimized. While the physicochemical characteristics of the as-synthesized catalysts were examined using numerous techniques such as FTIR, XRD, TGA BET, EDX, SEM, and HRTEM. Among all the catalysts, (10 wt%)Ni–ZrO2 exhibited high surface area when compared to the pristine ZrO2, (25 wt%)Ni–ZrO2 and (50 wt%)Ni–ZrO2 nanocatalysts. It may have influenced the catalytic properties of (10 wt%)Ni–ZrO2, which exhibited maximum catalytic activity with a biodiesel production yield of 90.5% under optimal conditions. Such as 15:1 methanol to oil molar ratio, 10 wt% catalysts to oil ratio, 8 h reaction time and 180 °C reaction temperature. Furthermore, the recovered catalyst was efficiently reused in several repeated experiments, demonstrating marginal loss in its activity after multiple cycles (five times).

Original languageEnglish
Article number592
JournalCrystals
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.

Keywords

  • biodiesel
  • nano-catalysts
  • transesterification
  • waste cooking oil

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemical Engineering
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Inorganic Chemistry

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