Int. J. Renew. Energy Dev. 2022, 11(3), 703-712 |703 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2022.43627 ISSN: 2252-4940/© 2022.The Author(s). Published by CBIORE Contents list available at IJRED website International Journal of Renewable Energy Development Journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id A Green Heterogeneous Catalyst Production and Characterization for Biodiesel Production using RSM and ANN Approach Aditya Kolakoti a , Muji Setiyo b,c* , Muhammad Latifur Rochman b,c a Department of Mechanical Engineering, Raghu Engineering College, Visakhapatnam,531162, India b Department of Automotive Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Magelang, Magelang,56172, Indonesia c Center of Energy for Society and Industry (CESI), Universitas Muhammadiyah Magelang, Magelang,56172, Indonesia Abstract. In this work, naturally available moringa oleifera leaves (also known as horseradish trees or drumstick trees) are chosen as a heterogeneous catalyst in the transesterification for biodiesel production from palm oil. The dry moringa oleifera leaves are calcinated at 700 °C for 3 hours to improve their adsorbing property. The calcinated catalyst characterization analysis from XRD and EDX highlights the presence of calcium, potassium, and other elements. Response surface method (RSM) optimization and artificial neural network (ANN) modeling were carried out to elucidate the interaction effect of significant process variables on biodiesel yield. The results show that a maximum biodiesel yield of 92.82% was achieved at optimum conditions of catalyst usage (9 wt.%), molar ratio, methanol to triglyceride (7:1), temperature (50 °C) and reaction time (120 min). The catalyst usage (wt.%) was identified as a significant process variable, followed by the molar ratio. Furthermore, the biodiesel’s significant fuel properties in terms of thermal, physical, chemical, and elemental match the established standards of ASTM. Finally, when the catalyst was reused for five cycles, more than 50% of the biodiesel yield was achieved. Keywords: Moringa oleifera leaves; Calcination; Biodiesel; Optimization and Modeling @ The author(s). Published by CBIORE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Received: 26 th Dec 2021; Revised: 10 th April 2022; Accepted: 16 th April 2022; Available online: 27 th April 2022 1. Introduction In the last few decades, the strategy for providing sustainable energy has become an ongoing discussion. Biomass selection, thermal management, and waste pyrolysis have been done to cut down on fossil fuel use (Adetunji et al., 2021; Elehinafe et al., 2021; Sunaryo et al., 2021; Supriyanto et al., 2019). Cleaner fuels like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) have been used, but they have not been able to replace conventional fuels like gasoline and diesel oil on a larger scale (Kivevele et al., 2020; Munahar et al., 2021; Susanto & Setiyo, 2018). Ethanol has also been introduced for a long time, even from local sources (Syarifudin et al., 2020; Wahyu et al., 2019), but implementation on a larger scale still remains a challenge due to uncompetitive market prices. Of all the available options, biodiesel is the only renewable and compatible fuel for current internal combustion engine (ICE) technology because it can be produced from a variety of biological sources and can be applied directly without significant engine modifications (Setiyo, 2022). * Corresponding Author: Email: muji@unimma.ac.id (M.Setiyo) The scientific studies reveal that biodiesel from locally available oils of different feedstocks matches the petro-diesel fuel properties (Karmakar et al., 2010; Souza et al., 2018). As a result, biodiesel production and characterization research using various edible and non- edible oils are ongoing (Demir et al., 2019). Improved fuel properties like high cetane number, high flash point, zero sulfur, presence of molecular oxygen (>9%), non-toxicity, and biodegradability in biodiesels attracted as a feasible solution to control the toxic emissions from the diesel engines (Basha et al., 2009). However, biodiesel has high viscosity (> 40 cSt) which is not recommended in diesel engines due to poor atomization (Kolakoti & Rao, 2020a; Supriyadi et al., 2022). Therefore, the transesterification process was implemented to reduce the viscosity (Hariyanto et al., 2021; Zetra et al., 2021) in addition to thermal cracking, micro-emulsification and blending techniques. The transesterification process has gained huge attention due to its high efficiency in biodiesel conversion (Sinha et al., 2008). During the transesterification process, the triglycerides in raw oils react with alcohol and a strong catalyst to form methyl or ethyl esters. Based on our Research Article