The transesterification reaction of soybean oil with methanol is studied with different γAl2O3 heterogeneous catalysts. The catalysts used are K-γAl2O3, Na-γAl2O3, Li-γAl2O3, Ca-γAl2O3 and Ba-γAl2O3 both 5% and 10% in metal content are prepared by impregnation. The first study concluded...

Design of experiments (DOE) offers a great deal of benefits to any manufacturing organization, such as characterization of variables and sets the path for the optimization of the levels of these variables (settings) trough the Response surface methodology, leading to process capability...

The use of computer modeling is fast increasing in almost everyscientific, engineering and business arena. This dissertationinvestigates some challenging issues in design, modeling andanalysis of computer experiments, which will consist of four majorparts. In the first part, a new approach is...

Increased rate of use of fossil fuels have greatly polluted the earth through harmful by-products. Biodiesel is an attractive substitute to fossil fuel in compression ignition engine applications. In this research work, vegetable oil namely Arachis Hypogaea Oil (AHO) is used along with ethanol...

In this work, the catalytic upgrading of a bio-oil model compound via esterification with ethanol was studied using 12-tungstosilicic acid as the catalyst. The response surface method was used to investigate and optimize the process variables, which include the ethanol to acid molar ratio,...