| Summary: | Biodiesel is a biodegradable and renewable fuel, that generally consists of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) produced by transesterification of lipids using methanol and a catalyst. Calcium oxide (CaO) is a heterogeneous catalyst that has been extensively studied to produce biodiesel due to its high catalytic activity. In addition, and in order to avoid mass transfer limitations that would slow down the reaction, it is also common to use a co-solvent. Thus, this work aims to evaluate the use of the surfactant Nonylphenol seven Ethoxylates (NP7EO) for the CaO-catalyzed transesterification of soybean oil. For this study, chicken eggshell was the source of calcium used to produce the CaO for the reaction. This work represents one of the few articles where transesterification was performed using a surfactant combined with a biobased and residual source of Ca. An experimental design was performed to evaluate the surfactant concentration and reaction time. Another factorial experimental design was carried out considering factors such as reaction time, catalyst concentration, and methanol-to-oil molar ratio. Ultimately, the model predicted by the experimental design was shown to be significant and the highest yield obtained after a 3 h reaction time was 98.95% with a 5 wt% catalyst loading and a 7:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio using 1 wt% of surfactant and operated at 65 °C. The results showed that the surfactant allowed reducing the methanol-to-oil molar ratio and reaction time, which ultimately could contribute in decreasing the biodiesel production costs.
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