Biodiesel Yield and Conversion Percentage from Waste Frying Oil Using Fish Shell at Elmina as a Heterogeneous Catalyst and the Kinetics of the Reaction

In this study, biodiesel was produced from waste frying oil as feedstock with a calcined fish shell under a heterogeneous solid base catalyst. The process of transesterification was done by varying methanol-to-oil molar ratio, catalyst amount, reaction temperature, and reaction time. The heterogeneous catalyst was prepared stepwise as follows: washing and drying the fish shell for 24 hours at 120°C in an oven, then crushing to form powder having been pound for 2-3 minutes in an agate mortar cleaned with nitric acid (6 N). The powdered fish shell was then calcined at 950°C for 4 hours using a muffle furnace. The calcined catalyst was subsequently kept in a desiccator to avoid encountering moisture. The prepared catalyst was then characterized using XRD and FT-IR. The optimum biodiesel yield of 99.58% was obtained under methanol-to-oil ratio of 10 : 1, catalyst amount of 3.0 wt%, reaction temperature of 60°C, and reaction time of 8 hours with mass transfer control of 600 rpm. The optimum rate of constant of 0.164 L/mol·S−1 was determined using the second-order kinetics model. The constant rate of reaction indicated that the forward reaction is crucial for the reaction. The properties of biodiesel produced conformed with those of the international standard using ASTM D6751.