Production And Process Optimization of Biolubricant from Neem Seed Oil

Abstract

The current work investigates the conversion of neem  seed oil to biolubricant. Furthermore, calcium oxide was prepared from egg shell by calcination and activated with phosphuric acid solution. The activated calcium oxide produced was characterized using FT-IR and TGA. The neem  seed oil was transesterified using methanol over activated calcium oxide derived from egg shell as catalyst to produce methyl esters (biodiesel), which was again transestrified with trimethylolpropane (TMP) under reflux at different reaction conditions to produce the target biolubricant and characterized using FT-IR and GC-MS. using the same activated calcium oxide prepared from egg shell as catalyst. Optimization of process parameters for tranesterification of neem seed oil was determined by Response surface based on Box-Beinkhen design. The optimum yield of the biolubricnat (79.60%) was achieved at the temperature, catalyst dose and reaction time of 150 ⁰C, 0.75%wt and 3 hours respectively.