Production of biodiesel from used cooking oil using blood cockle shell (Anadara Granosa) ash as catalyst

Biodiesel is renewable energy that can be renewed, biodegradable and enviromentally friendly. Transesterification is a reaction which is used to produce biodiesel where this reaction uses catalyst which was made from blood cockle shell ash which has been combusted at the temperature of 850 degrees C for 3 hours and the amount of the ash being used was 8%, 10% and 12% (m/m). The ash used was dissolved into methanol with the mole ratio of methanol to oil of 9:1, 12:1 (n/n) to obtain calcium methoxide. Used oil was filtered then esterificated by 3% of catalyst (m/m), H2SO4 98% and methanol:oil TG (6:1) to reduce the FFA until it is less than 1%. Transesterification was done at the reaction temperature of 65 degrees C for 3 hours and constantly stirred at the speed of 700 rpm. Quantitatively, optimum biodiesel yield obtained was 56.51% at the condition of 12% (m/m) of blood cockle ash, 12:1 mole ratio of methanol to used oil. The specification of the biodiesel such as density, kinematic viscosity and flash point at this condition matched the standard of biodiesel SNI 04-7182-2006 and according to gas chromatography analysis, the purity of the biodiesel produced is 98.79%.