CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
Biodiesel (fatty acid methyl esters) is an efficient, clean, 100% natural energy
alternative to petroleum fuels. Among the many advantages of biodiesel fuel are safe
for use in all conventional diesel engines, offers the same performance and engine
durability as petroleum diesel fuel, non-flammable and nontoxic, reduces tailpipe
emissions, visible smoke and noxious fumes and odors (Chand N, 2002). The use of
biodiesel has grown dramatically during the last few years. Feedstock costs account
for a large percent of the direct biodiesel production costs, including capital cost and
return (Chand N, 2002).
An effective way to lower the cost of biodiesel production is to use cheap and
non-edible vegetable oils, animal fats and waste oils as raw materials. However, such
low-cost materials usually contain significant amounts of free fatty acids (FFA),
which give rise to a depletion of the catalysts, increased purification costs, and lower
yield in alkali-catalyzed transesterification (Shu Q and Yang B, 2007).
One method is acid-catalyzed transesterification, despite its insensitivity to
FFA in the feedstock, but it has been largely ignored mainly because of its relatively
slower reaction rate (McLean DD, 2003). A better method, because of its faster
reaction rate and less corrosion of equipment, is to combine acid-catalyzed
esterification with alkali-catalyzed transesterification for feedstocks having high FFA
content. Compared with conventional homogeneous acids, solid acid catalysts have
many significant advantages such as less corrosion, less toxicity and less
environmental problems.

Conventionally, transesterification is performed using homogeneous alkaline

catalysts such as potassium hydroxide, potassium methoxide, sodium hydroxide, or
sodium methoxide. While the application of heterogeneous catalysts appears
promising because they can simplify the production and purification processes,
decrease the amount of basic waste water, downsize the process equipment, and
reduce the environmental impact and process cost.
Nowadays, Palm kernel shell has become one of the valuable commodity in
palm oil industry, many usage or application has been developed. The characteristic of
palm kernel shell such as fixed carbon, ash content and high carbon but low inorganic
contents in oil palm shell shows that it is suitable for palm kernel shell use as a raw
material for activated carbon (AC) production. Palm kernel shell is one of local
agriculture product that is inexpensive and easy to get. It is important to note that the
raw material quality has very large influence on the characteristics and performance of
activated carbon.
Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal or " Activated coal" is a form
of carbon that has been processed to make it extremely porous and thus to have a very
large surface area available for adsorption or chemical reactions (Hasler-1974). The
activated carbon has the strongest physical adsorption forces of the highest volume
adsorbing porosity of any material known to mankind (Lua & Guo-2001). By now, a
lot of research has been done on activated carbon (AC) to improve the application of
activated carbon.
In this study, activated carbon (AC) was prepared from OPKS as catalyst
support. Then the support was activated with active metal (NaOH) using impregnation
method and was tested in the transesterification of biodiesel.

1.2 Problem Statement

Exploring new energy resources, such as biodiesel fuel, is of growing importance in
recent years (Zhang, 2003). More than 100 years ago, a brilliant inventor named
Rudolph Diesel designed the original diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. Dr
Rudolph Diesel used peanut oil to fuel one of this his engines at the Paris Exposition
of 1900 (Demirbas A, 2003). Among them, biodiesel produced from different
vegetable oils (soybean, rapeseed and sunflower, for example) seems very interesting.
For these reasons, several campaigns have been planned in many countries to
introduce and promote the use of biodiesel (Carraretto C,2004). The vegetable oil
fuels were not acceptable because they were more expensive than petroleum fuels.
With recent increases in petroleum prices and uncertainties concerning petroleum
availability, there is renewed interest in vegetable oil fuels for diesel engines
(Demirbas A.,2002).
Extracted mesocarp fiber (or exocarp) and fruit shell (or endocarp) are two
major solid wastes from oil palm mills that have potential for raw material in
production of heterogeneous catalyst. In addition, Malaysia is the largest production
of oil palm industries in the world. This is has proved that the abundance of biomass
from oil palm industry make the oil palm shell easy to obtain and use as raw material
for activated carbon production. Otherwise, the palm shell has no specific technical
use and only a small portion is used as fuel to generate process steam in the palmprocessing mill.

The significant of this study is the abundance of palm kernel shell waste from oil
palm industry has contributed the chance to implement waste project. By using the
palm kernel shell of oil palm can reduce the by product from oil palm plantations,
mills and refineries. Hence, the activated carbon produced is effective in quality and
cost.
In this study, the oil palm kernel shell (OPKS) is used to produce activated carbon
and the effectiveness of the catalyst was tested in transesterification of biodiesel.

1.3 Objectives
The aim of this study is to produce catalyst for transesterification process. The
objectives are:
i)

To study the effect of calcination temperature and calcination time for the
synthesis of catayst.

ii)

To study the potential of palm oil based catalyst for production of biodiesel by
transesterification process.

iii)

To characterize the catalyst using FTIR.

1.4 Scope of Study

In this study, the oil palm kernel shell (OPKS) were carbonized in the furnace
by varying the operating parameter such as carbonization temperature and
carbonization time. The carbonization temperatures used is 500 C. After that, the
production of activated carbon carried out by using chemical activation method. In
chemical activation, the carbonization and activation are accomplished in a single step
by carrying out the thermal decomposition and impregnated with 0.5M of Sodium
Hydroxide (NaOH).
This study also focused on effect calcination temperature and calcination time.
Impregnated OPKS have been calcinize under temperature 400 C to 600 C with
control time of 2 and 4 hours. The catalyt will be analyze by using FTIR (Fourier
Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) to identify the functional group of catalyst.
In addition, the OPKS catalyst have been tested for production of biodiesel by
transesterification process. The reaction of cooking oil and methanol in the presence
of OPKS catalyst has produced FAME (Biodisel) and the glycerol.