Characterization and Kinetics of Biofuel Produced from Waste Cooking Oil

Biodiesel in recent times serves as a better alternative to petro-diesel with waste cooking oil as one of its cheapest feedstocks. The catalytic properties of 10 wt. % of mixed metal oxide of TiO2-supported-ZnO catalyst for the conversion of modeled waste cooking oil into biodiesel were investigated at 100, 150 and 200 degrees C in the presence of methanol and hexane co-solvents. The conversion was found to increase with reaction time and temperature. A utilization of hexane co-solvent was found to be of positive effect and increases the rate of trans-esterification reaction producing higher biodiesel yields in small times of reaction. The effect of temperature on transesterification reaction allows the estimation of the apparent activation energy that was found to be ca. 22.468 +/- 0.975 kJ/mol.