PRODUCTION OF BIOLUBRICANT FROM ALLAMANDA SEED OIL USING ACID ACTIVATED METAKAOLIN

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This research work is aimed at producing biolubricant from Allamanda seed oil using acid activated metakaolin as catalyst to resolve problems such as environmental pollution, food security and high cost of product after production by using an environmentaltyyyyly friendly feedstock, non edible feedstock and developing a heterogeneous catalyst from kaolin. The kaolin was dug from it site of location in kutigi, lavun local government area, Niger State. The kaolin was beneficiated using wet sieving and sedimentation method, the beneficiated kaolin was calcined at 650 oC for 90 minutes and was activated with 2 Moles of H2SO4. The produced catalyst was characterized using the following analysis; X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), the BET shows the surface area, pore volume and pore size of the raw kaolin, calcined and activated metakaolin, there was increase in surface area of the raw kaolin, calcined and activated metakaolin, the surface area of the activated metakaolin was 954.405 m2/g which corresponds with (Mudi et al., 2018), that any porous material with surface area above 100 m2/g is considered a good material for catalyst. XRF results indicated that the kaolin is rich in silicon and aluminum oxide. The Allamanda oil was extracted using soxhlet extraction method and the oil was characterized to analyze the physiochemical properties of the oil, hexane was used as the solvent for extraction. The biolubricant was produced by the two stages transesterification reaction, the first stage involves the reaction between the extracted Allamanda oil and methanol at a constant ratio of 5:1 with other parameters such as reaction time, reaction temperature and catalyst concentration was varied using BoxBehnken design module of Response Surface Methodology (RSM) available in “Design Expert® Software” to produce the Allamanda oil based biodiesel. The optimum operating conditions that gave the highest biodiesel yield of 91.3 % were 65 oC, 120 miuntes and 0.5 wt % and the produced Allamanda oil based biodiesel was characterized, the biodiesel had an acid value of 5.20 mgKOH/g. The second stage involves the transesterification of allamanda oil based biodiesel and trimethylolpropane to produce biolubricant at molar ratio of 4:1, reaction temperature of 120 oC, reaction time of 2hours 30 minutes and catalyst weight of 0.5 % wt. Vital lubricating properties of the produced biolubricant such as viscosity at 40 oC and 100 oC, pour point, flash point and viscosity index were determined and found to be 77.0 cSt, 26.0 cSt, -11.2 oC, 261.0 oC and 376.15 oC. The produced biolubricant met the following standard; ISO VG 32, ISO VG 46, ISO 68 which shows that the produced biolubricant can be used in automobile engines and hydraulics and can also serve as substitute to the conventional petroleum based lubricant.