THE POTENTIAL OF COCOA POD HUSK AS A HETEROGENEOUS SOLID CATALYST FOR THE TRANSESTERIFICATION OF NON-EDIBLE AZADIRACHTA INDICA (NEEM) SEED OIL INTO METHYL ESTERS: A CASE OF MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION STUDIES

摘要

Energy utilization has increased immensely in the last century because of increased growth of World population, urbanization and industrialization. Though renewable energy is one of the World's fastest-growing energy sources, fossil fuels, with their attendant problems, continue to supply almost 80 percent of World energy use through 2040 (www.eia.gov/pressroom/releases/press395.cfm), Thus, there is the need for unconventional fuel that is renewable and can solve the problems of depletion of fossil fuels and their environmental concerns. These challenges have led to the search for oils from plant sources to produce biodiesel. Such oils include sorrel oil, yellow oleander oil, neem oil, moringa oil, soybean oil, palm kernel oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, karanja oil, jojoba oil and jatropha oil. The major problem associated with biodiesel as alternative fuel is its inherent higher price than petro-fuels1. The higher price can be reduced by the use of cheap feedstock, which has sparked interest in materials such as waste oils, edible and non-edible oils. But there is growing debate on the use of edible oils for production of biodiesel. To deal with this concern, efforts are directed towards identifying more plant oils that are non-food (such as neem). Another way of lowering the cost of production is the use of heterogeneous catalysts to replace homogenous catalysts due to the associated problems of saponification, excess reactant consumption, environmental pollution, high alcohol-to-oil molar ratios and additional separation costs2. This is because heterogeneous catalysts are recoverable, less corrosive, produce no soap and can be reused.