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Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Author Spotlight: Employing Green-Chemistry Principles for Safe and Sustainable Synthesis of Biodiesels
Published on: April 19, 2024
Ionic liquid as a promising biobased green solvent in combination with microwave irradiation for direct biodiesel
Suzana Wahidin1, Ani Idris2, Sitti Raehanah Muhamad Shaleh3
1Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Chemical and Bioengineering Technology, 78000 Alor Gajah, Melaka, Malaysia.
Abstract:
The wet biomass microalgae of Nannochloropsis sp. was converted to biodiesel using direct transesterification (DT) by microwave technique and ionic liquid (IL) as the green solvent. Three different ionic liquids; 1-butyl-3-metyhlimidazolium chloride ([BMIM][Cl], 1-ethyl-3-methylimmidazolium methyl sulphate [EMIM][MeSO4] and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethane sulfonate [BMIM][CF3SO3]) and organic solvents (hexane and methanol) were used as co-solvents under microwave irradiation and their performances in terms of percentage disruption, cell walls ruptured and biodiesel yields were compared at different reaction times (5, 10 and 15 min). [EMIM][MeSO4] showed highest percentage cell disruption (99.73%) and biodiesel yield (36.79% per dried biomass) after 15 min of simultaneous reaction. The results demonstrated that simultaneous extraction-transesterification using ILs and microwave irradiation is a potential alternative method for biodiesel production.
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