One-Step Synthesis of CaO-ZnO Efficient Catalyst for Biodiesel Production

TORRES, JUAN JOSÉ; OCHOA, NELIO A.; ACEVEDO, DIEGO F.; PAGLIERO, CECILIA L.; TOLEDO ARANA, JAVIER; ILLANES, CRISTIAN O.

International Journal of Chemical Engineering

Hindawi

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019 vol. 2019 p. 1 - 7

1687-806X

Biodiesel is the best candidate for fuel oil replacement, and to obtain it, heterogeneous catalysts offer large advantages: they can beseparated from the product and reused. *is work reviews a novel one-step synthesis of CaO-ZnO catalytic particles suitable forbiodiesel production. *e catalyst is synthesized using an original simple method that involves mixing of ZnO with CaCO3 andsubsequent calcination. *e CaO-ZnO microparticles obtained present an average size of 2 μm. *is material shows thecharacteristic crystallographic cubic structure of CaO and the hexagonal phase of ZnO. *e temperature-programmed reductionexperiment evidences an interaction between CaO and ZnO. Moreover, the infrared spectroscopy shows typical bands of thesecompounds. *e catalyst shows high biodiesel yield, up to 73% in the first cycle and 64% in the second one. In this work, thesynthesis of an efficient CaO-ZnO catalyst with a huge potential is revealed, which could be an economic alternative toproduce biodiesel