Role of oxygen defects in basicity of Se doped ZnO nanocatalyst for enhanced triglyceride transesterification in biodiesel production

Abstract

We report herein, Se doped ZnO nanorods, a new heterogeneous base catalyst for transesterification of vegetable oil to fatty methyl esters (FAME) or biodiesel. Surface area defects, mainly oxygen interstitials and oxygen vacancies, in the crystal lattice play essential role in enhancing basic site reactivity. The optimum transesterification reaction condition was found to be usage of 1:20 oil to methanol volume ratio, 5 wt.% catalyst load, 65 °C as reaction temperature to give a maximum yield of 94.7% FAME in 3 h. The nanocatalyst was recyclable without loss of FAME yield and can be used for industrial scale biodiesel production.

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