Application of biosynthesized nano-catalyst for biodiesel synthesis and impact assessment of factors influencing the yield

This study presents a green process to synthesize biodiesel using biosynthesized nano-catalyst and a novel methodology for analyzing the impact of influencing factors – methanol/oil ratio, the concentration of nano-catalyst, temperature, and time of reactions - on the yield of biodiesel obtained by heterogeneous nano-catalyst-based transesterification reaction. Nano-calcium oxide (nano-CaO) was obtained as a heterogeneous nano-catalyst using waste eggshells. Waste cooking oil was treated with methanol and nano-catalyst at varying methanol: oil ratios (4 – 14:1), nano-catalyst concentration (0.5 – 2%), time of reaction (3 – 4.5 hrs), and temperature (50 – 65$^\circ$C). The superiority and effectiveness of the proposed transesterification indices were accomplished making use of Deluca and Termini fuzzy entropy weighted indexes to obtain optimal reaction conditions with 95.49% biodiesel yield.