Transesterification of poppy oil using marble dust as a catalyst

Tendency towards alternative energy sources has been increasing because of decreasing of fosil oil resources day by day and its environmental problems. In this study, transesterification reaction was performed in order to produce biodiesel from poppy oil and methanol catalyzed by marble dust. The effects of methanol:oil molar ratio, catalyst amount, reaction time and temperature were investigated during the process of biodiesel production. According to the results, optimum reaction conditions were determined as methanol:oil ratio 6:1, catalyst amount 1%, reaction time 120 minutes and temperature 65°C. The used catalyst CaO was yielded 43% at the end of the calcination process of powdered marble dust. The catalyst characterization was performed using XRD, SEM ve SEM-EDX methods. The oil properies of biodiesel were determined which was compared with TS EN 14214 standart. The biodiesel produced from poppy oil is expected to provide a good contribution to diesel.