Investigation of Performance of Impregnated Zeolite Catalysts for Biodiesel Production

In this study, the production of biodiesel was investigated using the process of esterification of free fatty acids in the presence of methanol and ZSM-5 catalyst. ZSM-5 zeolite was synthesized using hydrothermal technique and the promoters were loaded by wet impregnation method in rotator evaporator. XRD and FT-IR analyzes were used to evaluate the structure and specifications of synthesized catalysts. All Experiments were tested in 4 hour, molar ratio of methanol to oil 10: 1, 160 °C, 10 wt% of catalyst, and mechanical stirring of 500 rpm. According to the results obtained from catalyst analysis, the molybdenum promoter with a conversion rate of 89% showed the best performance in the process of esterification.