www.ijecs.in International Journal Of Engineering And Computer Science ISSN:2319-7242 Volume 2 Issue 5 may, 2013 Page No. 1426-1433 H.Ibrahim ,IJECS Volume 2 Issue 5 may, 2013 Page No. 1426-1433 Page 1426 Advancement in Heterogeneous Catalysis of Triglycerides for Biodiesel Production H. Ibrahim National Research Institute for Chemical Technology, Zaria-Nigeria. Abstract Heterogeneous catalyst of transesterification is gaining more support because of the friendly nature of the catalysts, easy separation from the products, their reusability and less process water require. This paper present the efficacy of some of the common solid catalysts for biodiesel production. Many researchers have developed different solid base/acid catalysts for transesterification of vegetable oil in order to replace the conventional homogeneous catalysts that have a lot of limitations. The performances of some of these heterogeneous catalysts with appropriate vegetable oils are reviewed in this paper. K/KOH/ϒ.Al 2 O 3 has yielded 84.5% biodiesel from rapeseed oil, X/Y/MgO/ϒ. Al 2 O 3 yielded 96.1% biodiesel from jatropha curcas oil, SO 4 /TiO 2 .nH 2 O and SO 4 /Zr(OH) 2 yielded 90% biodiesel from cotton seed oil. CaO, SrO, Ca(OCH 3 ) 2 and Ca(OCH 2 CH 3 ) 2 yielded 95% biodiesel from soybean oil. ZnO, 2 2 4 / SnO SO  /, and 2 2 4 / ZrO SO  have good yield of biodiesel with palm kernel oil and coco nut oil. Heterogeneous catalysis is a process intensification. Keywords: Heterogeneous catalysts, biodiesel, Transesterification, yield Introduction Transesterification of triglycerides with short chain mono-alcohols such as methanol and ethanol using homogeneous catalysts such as NaOH, KOH and MeONa is the conventional method of biodiesel production. The use of these catalysts has a lot of setbacks (Lotero et al, Retrieved, 2011) which include the following; high corrosiveness, intensive separation/ purification processes, Impossibility of catalyst reuse and inability of the homogeneous catalysts to catalyze high free fatty acid oils content. The strong acids such as H 2 SO 4 , HCl and H 2 PO 4 catalysts show tolerance for free fatty acid oil but they catalyze the transesterification reaction very slowly (Au and Dai, 2008). The acid catalysts can catalyze simultaneously both esterification and transesterification reaction. Acids homogeneous catalysts are not affected by the presence of free fatty acids and water, but the reaction rate is 4 000 times slower than in base catalysis (Au and Dai). To be economically viable and to compete commercially with petro-diesel, a continuous process for biodiesel production must be few in reaction steps and simple in separation processes, and obviously robust heterogeneous catalysts have to be employed. Heterogeneous catalysts are categorized as solid acid and solid base. Solid base catalysts include a wide group of compounds in the category of alkaline earth metal oxides, hydrotalcites/layered double hydroxides, alumina loaded with various compounds, zeolites, and various other