Costarrosa Morales, Laureano Leiva-Candia, David Eduardo Cubero-Atienza, Antonio J. Ruiz, Juan José Dorado, M.P. 2018-10-02T08:04:08Z 2018-10-02T08:04:08Z 2018 http://hdl.handle.net/10396/17207 Nowadays, biodiesel has become a very promising alternative to fossil diesel fuel, regarding environmental concerns and fuel resource depletion. Biodiesel is usually produced through homogeneous or heterogeneous transesterification of different fatty raw materials. Although main research has been carried out with homogenous catalysts, heterogeneous catalysts may be of interest due to ease of recovery and recycling, as well as readiness for continuous processing. In this work, calcined Mg-Al hydrotalcite (HT) was used for the heterogeneous transesterification of waste cooking oil. Three reaction parameters, namely, reaction time, amount of catalyst, and methanol-to-oil molar ratio, were optimized by means of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) at constant temperature (65 C), using a Box-Behnken design. Optimal fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) content (86.23% w/w FAME/sample) was predicted by the model with an R-squared value of 98.45%, using 3.39 g of HT (8.5% w/w oil) and an 8:1 methanol-oil molar ratio, for a duration of 3.12 h. It was observed that calcination of HT, while avoiding the previous washing step, allowed the presence of chemical species that enhanced the effect of the catalyst. It can be concluded from this field trial that calcined and nonwashed Mg-Al hydrotalcite may be considered an effective basic catalyst for the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil. Also, RSM proved to be a useful tool for predicting biodiesel yield. application/pdf eng MDPI https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Energies 11, 302 (2018) Heterogeneous catalysis Biofuel Diesel engines Used frying oil Simulation Optimization of the Transesterification of Waste Cooking Oil with Mg-Al Hydrotalcite Using Response Surface Methodology info:eu-repo/semantics/article http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en11020302 Gobierno de España. ENE2013-47769-R Junta de Andalucía. TEP-4994 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess