A comparative study on thermal decomposition behavior of biodiesel samples produced from shea butter over micro- and mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolites using different kinetic models

This study compared the kinetics of biodiesel produced over mesoporous ZSM-5 zeolites (0.3mesoZBio and 0.4mesoZBio) and conventional ZSM-5 zeolites (ZBio). The pyrolysis of each biodiesel was carried out in the presence of nitrogen at different heating rates of 10, 15 and 20 A degrees C min(-1). The reaction order, activation energy (E (A)) and frequency factor (A) were computed using four different models. The models are Arrhenius, Coats-Redfern, Ingraham-Marrier and Differential model. According to the computed average activation energy based on first order, the activation energies of the produced biodiesel are very close. ZBio exhibits the highest E (A) (86.53 kJ mol(-1)) compared to 0.3mesoZBio and 0.4mesoZBio (84.92 and 83.26 kJ mol(-1), respectively). Therefore, it is tenable to adduce ZBio as the most stable because higher activation energy engenders higher stability.