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Abstract
The present work proposes the synthesis of nanocrystalline calcium oxide by sonication assisted reverse emulsion technique. The synthesized and the commercially available calcium oxide were characterized by various techniques. The prepared material possesses 1.53 times higher specific surface area as compared to commercial calcium oxide due its smaller crystallite size and particle size. The performance of both the calcium oxide as a catalyst were investigated for the transesterification reaction of soybean oil under ultrasound irradiation with identical reaction conditions of power and frequency. The influence of different operating parameters on the conversion of soybean oil were studied for the synthesized catalyst. Under the optimal operating conditions viz. nanocrystalline catalyst loading of 4 wt% of oil, methanol to oil molar ratio of 6:1, temperature of 60 °C and ultrasonic power of 212.89 kW/m2, the conversion of oil was 89.89% in 80 min of reaction time. The synthesized catalyst shows 18.81% enhanced conversion of oil as compared to commercial catalyst at the same operating conditions. Finally, the activation energy of reaction was also determined at the optimized operating conditions for the synthesized catalyst and was found to be 54.26 kJ/mol.
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