Synthesis and Application of Na2O/ZrO2 Nanocomposite for Microwave-assisted Transesterification of Castor Oil

Transesterification reaction of castor oil catalyzed by Na2O/ZrO2 to produce biodiesel has been investigated. The catalyst was made by activating the ZrO2 with 98\% NaOH 5 M, dried in oven for 24 hours, and followed by calcination in a muffle furnace at 500 oC for 5 hours. XRD analysis shows that the catalyst has typical peaks at 2? = 38.32o, 33.19o, and 54.97o. The activation of the catalyst led to an increase of wt% of O and Na, but reduce the wt% of Zr. Transesterification of castor oil was carried out by varying the catalyst composition(w/w%) to determine its optimum conversion into product. The products were analyzed by GC-MS to determine the content and composition of the compounds, IR Spectroscopy to identify the functional group of the product, and ASTM analysis method to compare the quality of the product to the standard. The transesterification of castor oil was found to be optimum at 4% catalyst with biodiesel yield of 57.02%. However, the highest yield of methyl ester of ricinoleic acid, at 89.72%, was obtained using 2% catalyst (w/w%).