Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper as Heterogeneous Catalyst for Generation of Biodiesel from a Mixture of Multiple Oil Feedstocks

Abstract

A cost-effective catalyst is essential to reduce the expenses of producing biodiesel. This study is aimed at utilizing the waste of the black gram (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper) plant as an efficient catalyst for producing biodiesel from a blend of different edible and inedible oils. The catalyst was developed by igniting the dried material and then subjecting it to calcination at 550°C for 2 h. The feedstock was prepared by mixing the oils in an equivalent ratio for the reaction. Various sophisticated techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, XPS, BET, FESEM-EDX, HRTEM, and SAED were employed to characterize the prepared catalyst. The catalyst’s catalytic activity was assessed by transesterification of the oil mixture. The optimized transesterification conditions were 10 wt% of catalyst loading, 9 : 1 of MTOR, 65°C of reaction temperature, and 1.6±0.14 h of reaction time producing 94.79±0.27% of biodiesel yield and 96.86% oil conversion. The calcined catalyst’s alkaline solubility was found to be 2.77 mmol/g, basicity as 0.13 mmol/g, and 14.57 per hour as the turnover frequency (TOF). Catalyst reusability was conducted and found that the catalyst could be reprocessed up to three successive cycles. The synthesized biodiesel’s physicochemical characteristics were assessed and found to conform to ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 requirements.