Development of sulphonated sago pith waste catalyst for esterification of palm fatty acid distillate to methyl ester

Biodiesel is considered as one of the renewable sources of energy that has been highlighted as an alternative fuel due to its versatile properties. Despite the fact that it is remarkable, there are several issues such as its industrial production cost and environmental concern related to the usage of homogenous catalyst. Among the alternatives are to switch to use Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD) as a low-cost feedstock and utilizing a heterogeneous Sago Pith Waste (SPW) catalyst. In this study, the heterogeneous catalyst was prepared by sulfonating the incomplete carbonized SPW under various preparation conditions. One factor at a time (OFAT) method was carried out to determine the optimum preparation condition for sulfonated SPW catalyst and the produced catalysts were characterized to study its morphology, crystallinity, surface area and acid density. The optimum preparation condition for sulfonated SPW catalyst were 1:20 ratio mass of dry SPW to the volume of sulfuric acid, 5 minute of sulfonation time and 200 °C of carbonization temperature. The optimum catalyst prepared gave 99.34 % methyl ester yield and 93.03 % PFAD conversion. Substantial yield and conversion obtained indicated the suitability of SPW as a heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production.