Ultrasound aided in situ transesterification of crude palm oil adsorbed on spent bleaching clay

Research highlights: → Crude palm oil adsorbed on spent bleaching clay converted to biodiesel. → Ultrasound dislodges adsorbed oil from spent bleaching clay into reaction mixture. → Co-solvents promotes miscibility of the reactants. -- Abstract: Adsorbed crude palm oil on spent bleaching clay (SBC) was in situ transesterified to methyl esters (biodiesel) by the aid of ultrasound and organic co-solvents (petroleum ether (PE) or ethyl methyl ketone (EMK)). The SBC under study was found to contain 24.2-27.0% of crude oil with free fatty acids (FFA) of 3.01% and moisture content of 0.29%. The optimized reaction conditions were as follows: methanol to oil molar ratio of 150:1; catalyst (KOH), 20%; reaction temperature, 60 ± 2 oC; reaction time, 2 h. Using PE as a co-solvent, highest conversion of 75.2% was achieved while 60% was recorded with EMK.