Kinetics study of biodiesel synthesis from sunflower oil using Ba-Sr/ZSM-5 nanocatalyst

In the present research work, the kinetics of sunflower oil transesterification reaction in the presence of Ba-Sr/ZSM-5 nanocatalyst which prepared using incipient wetness impregnation method was investigated. The 10wt.%Ba-Sr/ZSM-5 (Sr/Ba=3/2) nanocatalyst was calcined at 600 °C for 6 h with a heating rate of 3 ºC/min. The experimental conditions were the methanol/oil 9/1molar ratio, reaction time (0-180 min) and reaction temperature (323–333 K) with mechanical stirring of 500 rpm. An irreversible pseudo-second order kinetics was considered for triglyceride conversion from the best modeling of experimental data. From the kinetic study, Ea=67.03 kJ/mol and A=9.29×108 1/min were obtained. The yield of the methyl ester products (86.69%) were determined using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. characterization of the catalysts and precursors was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and N2 adsorption-desorption measurement methods.