Anvar Shalmashi - IROST, Chemical Technology,
Fatemeh Amani - IROST, Chemical Technology,

Biodiesel as a green and sustainable fuel is one of the best alternative candidate for petro-diesel in diesel engines. Biodiesel is produced via transesterification reaction of renewable bio-sources of oils like plant and animal oils with simple alcohols mostly methanol or ethanol in present of commonly alkaline catalyst. One of the main problems in this process is immiscibility of oil and alcohol that causes of longer reaction time and more costs. To overcome this problem, in the present study, two different co-solvents including acetone and hexane were investigated for ultrasound-assisted synthesis of biodiesel from Jatropha oil in the presence of CaO as heterogeneous catalyst. All experiments were carried out in constant frequency (20 kHz) and output power (200 w) of a probe type ultrasound instrument (UP 200 H). Hnmr, FT-IR and GC-MS analysis were used for confirming the synthesis of biodiesel. Results showed that the present of co-solvent could fascinate the transesterification reaction and therefore would lead the reaction to a high conversion rate more than 90% at the lower amount of needed materials and milder operation conditions of time and temperature. This is due to increasing miscibility, diffusion and efficient contact between the oil and methanol which could reduce costs and accelerates the production process.

Biodiesel, Jatropha curcas L., Transesterification, Co-Solvent, Ultrasound, Heterogeneous Cataly