Preparation of Zirconia Supported Basic Nanocatalyst: A Physicochemical and Kinetic Study of Biodiesel Production from Soybean Oil.

Zirconia supported cadmium oxide basic nanocatalyst was prepared by simple co-precipitation method using aq. ammonia as precipitating reagent. The catalyst was characterised by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy technique (TEM), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller surface area measurement (BET), temperature program desorption (TPD-CO2) etc. The transesterificaton of soybean oil with methanol into biodiesel was catalysed by employing zirconia supported nanocatalyst. Kinetics of transesterificaton of oil was studied and obeyed the pseudo first order equation. While, the activation energy (Ea) for the transesterification of oil was found to be 41.18 kJ mol(-1). The 97% yield of biodiesel was observed using 7% catalyst loading (with respect of oil), 1:40 molar ratio of oil to methanol at 135°C.