| Summary: | Biodiesel is mostly made from trans-esterification reaction using homogenous catalysts. Problems related to homogenous catalysts are the difficulty to separate the final product and the toxic that the waste contains. To prevent this negative effect, it is suggested to use heterogeneous catalysts.
Several studies related to heterogeneous catalysts have been studied by researchers since the use of heterogeneous catalysts instead of homogeneous ones can be expected to eliminate the problems associated with homogeneous catalysts. The solid-based catalysts are easily regenerated and have a less corrosive nature, leading to safer, cheaper, and more environment-friendly operations.
In this paper, the trans-esterification of palm oil to biodiesel was studied using KOH loaded on activated carbon (K-AC) as heterogeneous catalyst. Reaction parameters such as temperature, percentage of catalyst amount, and molar ratio of oil to methanol were optimized to reach the highest conversion. Iodometry method was used to determine bonding glycerol in final product. The highest conversion of glycerol, 22.71%, was obtained by using 3% catalyst amount at 60 oC temperature and 1:6 molar ratio of palm oil to methanol. The low conversion was probably due to the catalyst’s pore size which is not large enough, causing only a few triglycerides able to pass through the pore and react with KOH.
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