Use of coal fly ash as a catalyst in the production of biodiesel
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Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Slovnaft VÚRUP
Abstract
South Africa is largely dependent on the combustion of coal for electricity production; Eskom’s coalfired
power stations consume approximately 109 million tons of coal per annum, producing around 25
million tons of ash, to supply the bulk (93%) of South Africa’s electricity. The management of this fly
ash has been a concern with various approaches for its beneficial use being investigated. This work
presents the results of transesterification reaction using sunflower oil as feedstock with methanol and
class F fly ash catalyst derived from a coal fly ash dump in South Africa to produce methyl esters (biodiesel).
The fly ash based catalyst was prepared using the wet impregnation procedure with different loadings
of potassium. This was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR spectroscopy. The XRD
patterns obtained indicated that the structure of the support gradually deformed with an increase in
the loading and the extent of decomposition of KNO3 varied with the amount of loading. The influence
of various reactions parameters such as loading amount of active components, methanol: oil ratio, reaction
time, temperature and catalyst deactivation was investigated. The fly ash based catalyst loaded with
5% wt KNO3 at a reaction temperature of 160ºC exhibited maximum oil conversion (86.13%). The
biodiesel synthesized was tested and important fuel properties of the methyl esters (Biodiesel) compared
well with ASTM biodiesel standard
Description
Keywords
Fly ash, Heterogeneous catalyst, Sunflower oil, Transesterification, Methyl ester
Citation
Baabjide, O., et al. (2010). Use of Coal Fly Ash as a Catalyst in the Production of Biodiesel. Petroleum & Coal, 52 (4): 261-272