Investigation into the production of biodiesel from Jatropha oil using ZSM-5 as a heterogeneous catalyst

This study aimed at producing biodiesel from Jatropha oil using Zeolite Socony Mobil-5 (ZSM-5) as a heterogeneous catalyst at different temperatures of 70°C, 80°C, 90°C, 100°C, and 110°C. The transesterification was carried out maintaining a butanol to oil ratio of 6:1, a reaction time of 2 hours, a catalyst loading of 0.5 g ZSM-5, and a settling time of 24 hours. An optimum yield of 56% was obtained at 110°C—the highest temperature under consideration. This gives a biodiesel which meets the EN14214 and ASTM D6751 stan- dards with the following properties: acid value of 0.486 mg KOH/g, density of 0.8485 g/ ml, cloud point of 14°C, and a flash point of 145°C. The average yield may be attributed to the reaction parameters that were kept constant.