CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 56, 2017 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Peng Yen Liew, Wai Shin Ho, Jeng Shiun Lim Copyright © 2017, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., ISBN 978-88-95608-47-1; ISSN 2283-9216 Preparation and Characterisation of Microwave Assisted Chlorinated Glucose for Biodiesel Production from Palm Fatty Acid Distillate Nur Nazlina Saimon, Mazura Jusoh, Norzita Ngadi, Zaki Yamani Zakaria* Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai, Johor zakiyamani@utm.my Biodiesel has a remarkable potential in substituting petroleum based fuel because it is non-toxic, biodegradable, renewable and sulphur free. In this work, the esterification of palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) over microwave assisted chlorinated glucose catalysts was investigated. PFAD is being chosen due to its lower cost compared to palm oil and stable its properties. Incomplete carbonised glucose (ICG) was prepared by heating the D-(+)-Glucose in microwave and crushed into powder form. The ICG powder was mixed with concentrated HCl acid and heated for 5, 7 and 9 min in microwave. The catalyst was then diluted with distilled water and washed using hot distilled water. The catalyst was then dried prior to the catalytic activity. Esterification conditions were molar ratio methanol: oil of 10 : 1, temperature at 70 °C, 2.5 wt% of catalyst loading and 90 min reaction time. Characterisation of catalyst was carried out by using Brunauer-Emmett- Teller (BET), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform-infrared (FTIR). The maximum biodiesel yield obtained was 91.78 % using the optimal chlorinated glucose catalyst which was heated for 5 min in the microwave. It can be deduced that microwave assisted chlorinated glucose acid catalyst could potentially reduce substantial amount of time, energy and cost to produce low cost feedstock biodiesel. 1. Introduction Petroleum demand increased each year with the rise of human population and rapidly growing industries. It became significantly imperative in the transportation sector and world economy (Li et al., 2013). High consumption of petroleum result to the fast depletion of petroleum resources recently. The automobile and energy-based industry will have to deal with the consequences or in worst case scenario they might have to be closed (Bharathiraja et al., 2014). Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) or known as well as biodiesel is one of the alternatives in solving the depletion of the petroleum sources. It can be derived from transesterification of triglycerides which is basically fine grade edible oil. Besides palm oil, potential feedstocks for the production of biodiesel include jatropha oil, cotton seed oil, soybean oil as well as corn oil. Despite of various feedstocks available, the transesterification process is still expensive, partly contributed by the cost of feedstocks. Hence, a cheaper low cost feedstock is favourably crucial to be used to improve the economic viability of biodiesel industry. Recent study involving palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) has gained attention due to its stable properties and cheaper price. PFAD is a by-product from crude palm oil refinery consisting more than 85 wt% of free fatty acid (FFA) (Cho et al., 2012). High level of FFA percentage in the feedstock will trigger problem in biodiesel production especially with the utilisation of common catalyst such as H2SO4 and NaOH. Utilisation of NaOH will generate saponification and deactivate the catalyst, thus an acid catalyst, for instance H2SO4 is proposed to overcome the issue (Chongkhong et al., 2007). The final product of biodiesel uses H2SO4 as catalyst which subsequently creates additional further treatment to recover the methyl ester from the acid. Due to this dilemma, a heterogeneous acid catalyst was suggested to eliminate the problems that occurs from using NaOH and H2SO4 (Nakpong and Wootthikanokkhan, 2010). DOI: 10.3303/CET1756150 Please cite this article as: Saimon N.N., Jusoh M., Ngadi N., Zakaria Z.Y., 2017, Preparation and characterization of microwave assisted chlorinated glucose for biodiesel production from palm fatty acid distillate, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 895-900 DOI:10.3303/CET1756150 895