| Summary: | This study was carried out to study the effectiveness of clamshell and sea sand as heterogeneous catalyst to produce biodiesel via transesterification of waste cooking oil (WCO). WCO was first pre-treated to discard water and impurities. Clamshell and sea sand were crushed into fine powder, sieved to 500 µm particles and calcined. Next, the pre-treated WCO was used to obtain fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) via transesterification reaction. FTIR and XRD results of calcined clamshell confirmed the formation of CaO and Ca(OH)2 while sea sand contains SiO2 before and after calcination. 2:1 clamshell-to-sea sand ratio produced highest FAME yield. This ratio was used to study the effect of catalyst loading amount. 7 wt% catalyst produced highest FAME yield. Increasing catalyst to 10 wt% reduced the FAME yield due to the soap formation. Analysis of FAME using GC-MS showed the presence of myristic acid, palmitic acid and oleic acid. This study shows that combination of clamshell and sea sand is good potential catalyst for transesterification reaction to produce biodiesel. © 2018, Malaysian Society of Analytical Sciences. All rights reserved.
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