Production of biodiesel from high acidity waste cooking oil using nano GO@MgO catalyst in a microreactor

This research aims to improve biodiesel production from waste cooking oil (WCO) by employing a graphene oxide doped magnesium oxide (GO@MgO) nanocatalyst for transesterification. The reaction parameter that impacts the transesterification reaction for biodiesel production is optimized using the response surface approach. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) were used to analyze the GO@MgO nanocatalyst. At the optimized conditions, the maximum biodiesel purity for MgO and GO@MgO were (93.84%) and (99.23%), respectively. The optimized conditions were as follows: oil/methanol volume ratios of 2.46:1 and 2.67:1, catalyst dosages of 4.7 %wt. and 3.9 %wt., and a reaction time of 176.39 s, and 174.2 s.