Waste Animal Bone as Support for CaO Impregnation in Catalytic Biodiesel Production from Vegetable Oil

Heterogeneous catalyst plays a vital role in this process, especially in view of cost and reusability. In the present study, a useless material such as waste animal bone was employed as support for calcium oxide impregnation. CaO was impregnated on the pre-treated waste sheep bone as an active component in different loading levels. The catalyst was then characterized and tested in reaction in similar conditions as follows: atmospheric pressure; reaction temperature: 60 A degrees C; methanol/oil molar ratio: 12:1; catalyst weight (based on oil weight): 5 % and reaction time: 5 h, under vigorous stirring. When 5 wt% of CaO, based on support weight was impregnated, maximum conversion of 95.18 % was obtained and also the catalyst was recoverable. On the other hand, conversion of 49.51 % was obtained when the same amount of CaO was used without support and the catalyst was also non-reusable. Moreover, reusability tests showed only a slight decrease in catalyst activity.