Asian Journal of Applied Chemistry Research

The objective of the present work is to synthesize and characterizethe production of biodiesel from palm oil. Acid activated heterogeneous catalyst was used in the synthesis process. The clay was characterized using SEM. The effect of process variables such as reaction temperature, catalyst weight and oil to alcohol ratio were investigated. Response surface methodology (RSM) was utilized in the design of experiment and modeling of the biodiesel production process. The biodiesel was characterized and compared to standard properties of biodiesel. The result showed that H₂SO₄ activation increased the surface area of the clay. In the RSM modeling, the maximum biodiesel yield obtained was 82.99% at reaction time of 5 hours, temperature of 140^oC, methanol to oil ratio of 10:1, and catalyst weight of 3.6 wt%. Quadratic model with correlation coefficient of 0.9657, best described the experimental data. The physio-chemical properties of the biodiesel synthesized were comparable to the properties of standard biodiesel. This study has shown that clay heterogeneous catalyst can be used to catalyst the synthesis of biodiesel from palm oil. The finding of this study is recommended for solving some of the challenges posed by the use of fossil fuel.