Synthesis of beta-tricalcium phosphate catalyst from Herring fishbone for the transesterification of parsley seed oil.

The transesterification of parsley seed oil using a heterogeneous catalyst prepared from Herring fishbone (HFB) was investigated in this study. The fishbone was calcined at 900oC for 4 h to convert the calcium phosphate in the bone to beta-tricalcium phosphate. The prepared catalyst was then characterized by employing scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis to determine its morphology and elemental composition. The results obtained revealed beta-tricalcium phosphate (ß-TCP) as the major constituent of the calcined HFB and also showed the presence of an insignificant portion of hydroxyapatite and calcium oxide. The synthesized heterogeneous catalyst showed good catalytic activity up to five times on reuse. The biodiesel yield of 93% was obtained using 3 wt% of catalyst amount, 65 oC temperature of the reaction, 1.5 h time, and 9:1 alcohol-to-oil ratio. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) were utilized to characterize the produced biodiesel. Also, their fuel properties were within the American Society for Testing and Materials set limits.

Yield Response from the Catalytic Conversion of Parsley Seed Oil into Biodiesel Using a Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Catalyst.

This research work is focused on the investigation of the optimum condition for parsley seed oil (PSO) trans-esterification using a heterogeneous (CCB) and homogenous catalyst (KOH). The process parameters (alcohol: oil ratio, temperature, and catalyst loading) were varied to examine their effect on the percentage biodiesel yield using a Box-Behnken design embedded with the response surface methodology (RSM). Also, the heterogeneous catalyst was synthesized by calcining waste chicken bones at 900 °C for 4 h. Thereafter, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis were utilized to determine the morphology and elemental composition. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was also adopted to assess the effect of calcination temperature on the prepared catalyst. The characterization analysis revealed the presence of hydroxyapatite as the major component, and the reusability test showed that it exhibited good catalytic performance for PSO transesterification. However, the optimization study revealed that the optimum reaction conditions of 9:1 alcohol: ratio, 60 °C reaction temperature, and 3 wt % catalysts gave 90% biodiesel yield, while the homogenous catalyst (used as the control transesterification experiment) under the same conditions gave an average yield of 96.33%. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was utilized to characterize the produced biodiesel. Furthermore, the fuel characteristics of biodiesel were within the specifications of the ASTM D6751.