Kinetics and simulation of biodiesel production using a geopolymer heterogenous catalyst

This work aims to develop a comprehensive kinetic and simulation study of biodiesel production using waste cooking oil (WCO) catalyzed by blast furnace slag geopolymer (BFSG) as a heterogeneous catalyst. The kinetic investigation was established following the pseudo-first and second-order model using three reaction parameters, namely, the reaction temperature (40-60 °C), reaction time (4-8 h) and catalyst ratio (6-14 wt.%), while maintaining a constant methanol-to-oil composition of 40 wt.%. The geopolymer-catalyzed transesterification process was simulated using ChemCAD version 8.1.0, which incorporates the four major triglycerides (triolein, tripalmitin, tristearin and triolein) of WCO. The results of the transesterification reaction of WCO in a kinetic plug flow reactor (PFR) demonstrated a good fit of the data, with an R² above 0.96 in both cases. The pseudo-first-order (PFO) model revealed a more favorable reaction pathway, with an activation energy of 58.876 kJ.mol^-1, as opposed to the value of 131.369 kJ.mol^-1 obtained from the pseudo-second-order (PSO) analysis. The catalytic activity of BFSG yielded a maximum conversion of 99.18% at a 12 wt.% catalyst ratio. The study results demonstrated the effectiveness of the transesterification process catalyzed by BFSG as a promising low-cost technology for the biodiesel industry.