Calcium oxide based catalysts for biodiesel production: a review

Vegetable oils are mainly esters of fatty acids and glycerol, which can be converted to fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), also known as biodiesel, by the transesterification reaction with methanol. In order to attain environmental benignity, much attention has been focused in the last decades on utilizing heterogeneous catalysts for biodiesel production instead the homogenously catalyzed transesterification of vegetable oil. The pure CaO or CaO mixed with some other metal oxide due to its low solubility in methanol, FAME and glycerol, low cost and availability, is one of the most promising among the proposed heterogeneous catalysts. Solid catalysts containing CaO usually fulfill a number of important requirements, such as high activity at mild temperature, marginal leaching of Ca cations, long life activity, reusability in transesterification of vegetable oil and easy recovery from the final products of trancesterification (FAME and glycerol). This review is focused on the recent application of pure CaO or CaO in complex catalyst structure and their use as heterogeneous base catalysts for biodiesel synthesis and suitability for industrial application