APPLICATION OF RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY FOR THE OPTIMIZATION OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION VIA TRANSESTERIFICATION OF CASTOR OIL WITH CALCIUM OXIDE

Castor seeds were processed and the oil was extracted from the paste by coldpressing and the yield obtained was 42.80%. Moisture content of 4.38% wasfound. The crude oil was obtained as clear, viscous, pale-yellow liquid. Trans-esteriβicationofcrudecastoroilwithmethanoltoproducebiodieselinthepres-ence of calcium oxide (CaO) as a catalyst was carried out. This study analysedthefuelpropertiesofbiodiesel; theFTIRspectrumforthebiodieselrevealedthefunctional groups with characteristics bands, C=O, - (CH2) n-, C-O, C=C, OH andC-H in the spectrum. From the result of the FTIR and GC-MS, the methyl estergroups present in the biodiesel produced was determined and 9-Octadecenoicacid-12-hydroxy- methyl ester was identiβied as the most abundant compoundin the biodiesel which have all the functional groups as revealed by the FTIR.The experimental design as well as statistical analysis were done and analysedusing Response Surface Methodology (RSM) design expert 12.0 version soft-ware which was also used for the optimization of the three process parameters.The optimum conditions for biodiesel production were a reaction temperatureof 620C, methanol to oil ratio of 11:1 and a catalyst of 3.5 wt% of oil at 1hour.The biodiesel content under these optimum conditions was 54%. R2value of0.9996 was obtained showing good βitting.