Fish-Bone-Doped Sea Shell for Biodiesel Production from Waste Cooking Oil

Transesterification of waste cooking oil with methanol using calcined waste fish bone and sea shell catalyst was studied. An inexpensive and environmentally benign catalyst was prepared from waste fish bones (WFB) and Tellina tenuis shells (TTS), and the catalyst was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) techniques. From XRD, it was confirmed that the major phase of WFB was hydroxyapatite and calcium oxide was found to be the dominant fraction of calcined TTS. FTIR and SEM–EDS analysis of WFB confirmed the presence of hydroxyapatite exhibiting hexagonal structure. Different combinations of WFB and TTS have been developed to obtain novel catalyst composition. Above 94% conversion was reported with various combinations of WFB and TTS using 3 wt% catalyst, 12:1 molar ratio, 65 °C and 1.5 h. © 2019, The Institution of Engineers (India).