Transesterification of used frying oil by activated banana peels waste catalyst for biodiesel production

This study aims to investigate the synthesis of biodiesel from used frying oil (UFO) catalyzed by activated banana peels waste (ABPW) catalyst. Raw banana peels waste (RBPW) was activated by phosphoric acid (H3PO4) via one step carbonization method. The activated catalyst was characterized through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) method and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. The performance of the catalyst was evaluated by varying the transesterification reaction parameters such as methanol to oil volume ratio, amount of catalyst dosage, reaction time and reaction temperature towards the percentage of biodiesel yield. SEM analysis showed both RBPW and ABPW have different morphologies where porous structure was observed before RBPW being activated by H3PO4 and non-porous structure was observed after RBPW being activated by H3PO4. Comparing the textural properties for both RBPW and ABPW, the prepared ABPW catalyst has higher surface area (10.33 m(2)/g) and adsorption average pore diameter (62.81 angstrom) compare to RBPW with 4.82 m(2)/g of surface area and 38.79 angstrom of adsorption average pore diameter. Furthermore, the different in the existence of the functional group for both materials also justified the activation of BPW by H3PO4 by the preparation method. From the catalytic activity results, the highest biodiesel yield of 85 % has been attained during 15:2 of methanol to oil volume ratio, 0.5 g of catalyst dosage, 90 min of reaction time at 90 degrees C. However, the result from GC-MS analysis shows that only methyl elaidate and methyl palmitate were found in the biodiesel product. Therefore, improvement need to be done towards the catalyst preparation method in term of its calcination process in the future to obtain a high quality of biodiesel with high composition of FAMEs in the product. Copyright (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Symposium of Reaction Engineering, Catalysis & Sustainable Energy