Butanolysis of Jatropha oil using glycerol enriched non-calcined calcium oxide: Optimization of the process.

• Glycerol enriched non-calcined calcium oxide was used as catalyst in butanolysis of Jatropha oil. • Influences of temperature and butanol molar ratio on conversion and ester yield were evaluated. • From main factors and their interaction, temperature was found to highly affect both responses. • As curvatures for both responses were significant, quadratic models were used for optimization. • Maximum oil conversion and butyl ester yield to be obtained at optimum conditions were determined. The butanolysis of Jatropha oil using glycerol enriched non-calcined calcium oxide as heterogenous catalyst was carried out to investigate the influences of reaction temperature and butanol: oil molar ratio on Jatropha oil conversion (X JOB) and the yield of fatty acid butyl esters (Y FABEs). The central composite design involved two factors (reaction temperature and butanol: oil molar ratio) and two levels factorial (22) was used to determine the impacts of the factors on X JOB and Y FABEs and to optimize the reaction process. From the main factors and their interaction, temperature was found to highly affect both the X JOB and Y FABEs. As curvatures are statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05), the second order models (quadratic models) were found to be more suitable to optimize the butanolysis process. Based on the regression models and the response surface methodology, the maximum X JOB (98.16%) and Y FABEs (95.79%) were predicted to be obtained at the optimum temperatures of 87.35 and 90.48 oC and butanol: oil molar ratios of 9.13:1 and 13.24:1, respectively. The maximum Y FABEs of 95.64% was also experimentally obtained at the optimum conditions predicted for the Y FABEs. From the results obtained for the experimental ranges investigated, the present study suggested that glycerol enriched non-calcined calcium oxide can be used as a good alternative catalyst for biodiesel production using butanol. More studies are also suggested for upscaling the reaction process of the current experiments by using more integrated reaction factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]