Towards biodiesel sustainability: Waste sweet potato leaves as a green heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production using microalgal oil and waste cooking oil

Biodiesel production from cheap and available feedstocks using agriculture waste as catalysts is success strategy towards making biodiesel more commercially competitive. Hence, in the current study, a green heterogeneous catalyst (CSPL) derived from the waste sweet potato leaves was synthesized and employed for biodiesel production using Scenedesmus obliquus oil (OSO) and waste soybean cooking oil (WSCO). The CSPL was characterized by XRD, FTIR, FE-SEM, TEM, BET, EDX, and TGA. The CSPL showed high catalytic activity for converting the OSO and WSCO to biodiesel, attributable to the predominant potassium content in carbonates and oxides form. The maximum OSO and SWCO conversion of 99.50% and 98.0% were obtained using 7 wt% and 5 wt% catalyst loading and 15:1, 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio for 90 and 120 min at 60 degrees C, respectively. The physicochemical characteristics of the produced biodiesel were in good agreement with the standard specifications norms of the fuel.

Automated summary

Producing biodiesel from cheap and available feedstocks using agriculture waste as catalysts can enhance the commercial competitiveness of biodiesel. In this study, a green heterogeneous catalyst derived from waste sweet potato leaves was synthesized and used for biodiesel production from Scenedesmus obliquus oil and waste soybean cooking oil. The catalyst showed high catalytic activity and achieved high conversion rates, with the produced biodiesel meeting the standard specifications of fuel.