South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7

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South African Journal of Chemical Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sajce

Application of response surface methodology for optimization of biodiesel

production parameters from waste cooking oil using a membrane reactor
L.B. Moyo a, S.E. Iyuke a, R.F. Muvhiiwa b, G.S. Simate a, N. Hlabangana c, *
a
School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
b
Institute for the Development of Energy for African Sustainability and Engineers Without Borders-Unisa, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of
South Africa (UNISA), c/o Christiaan de Wet & Pioneer Avenue, Florida Campus 1710, Johannesburg, South Africa
c
Research and Internationalisation Office, National University of Science and Technology, P O Box AC 939 Ascot Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In light of the growing concerns over depleting energy resources, alternative renewable fuels such as biodiesel
Biodiesel have been identified as a possible means of addressing this crisis. In biodiesel production, waste cooking oil
Waste cooking oil (WCO) is seen as the ideal alternative feedstock to vegetable oils, which are part of the food chain. The need to
Response surface methodology
obtain high quality biodiesel at minimal cost has driven the idea to use membrane reactors, which offers the
Membranes
ability to achieve both reaction and separation processes simultaneously. Design and optimization studies were
conducted using sulphated zirconia pre-treated WCO as feed stock. Response surface methodology modelling was
used to investigate the effect of reaction temperature, catalyst concentration and circulation flow rate in bio­
diesel production using membrane reactors. This is because limited data is available, particularly considering
circulation flow rate effect on biodiesel production using membrane reactors. Experimental results also show that
the higher the catalyst to WCO ratio the higher the free fatty acids (FFA) content. A maximum biodiesel yield of
92. 6 mole % was obtained at a temperature of 61◦ C, circulation flow rate of 26 mL/min using KOH catalyst
concentration of 1.3 wt % over a TiO2/Al2O3 membrane. Upon membrane optimization, a biodiesel yield of
94.03 mol % was obtained at 58.5 ◦ C, circulation flow rate of 18.78 ml/min and catalyst concentration of 1.24 wt
%. This analysis clearly shows that RSM can be successfully used to model reacting membranes using temper­
ature, catalyst concentration and circulation flow rate to achieve higher yields for biodiesel production.

1. Introduction
A great emphasis has been placed on global warming, environmental
pollution and the ever- depleting fossil fuel resources in this climate-
sensitive period. These have become major global issues and various
methods have been suggested to curtail the undesired effects of fossil
fuel emissions (Avinash, Subramaniam, and Murugesan, 2013). Biofuels
which are envisaged to reduce carbon emissions have been suggested
such as biodiesel, which is also renewable, non-toxic and eco-friendly
(Singh et al., 2020). Biodiesel can be sourced from a variety of feed­
stock, which are edible and non-edible). Non-edible sources such as
waste cooking oil (WCO) have proved to be an attractive option owing to
the low cost as a raw material (Kamaronzaman et al., 2020). In addition,
waste beneficiation from WCO has been attractive as this ensures a
consistent supply of feedstock compared to competing with food-based
feed stocks such as sunflower oil which are more valuable as part of
the food chain (Rezania et al., 2019). Therefore, the use of WCO as the
raw material for biodiesel production stabilizes pricing and profitability
of the overall process (Neutral Fuels, 2019). The reuse of WCO prevents
direct discharge into drainage systems which results in water and soil
pollution thus harming the ecosystem. Again, discharging WCO is a big
problem in the water industry because it results in pipe blockages, thus
weighing heavily on maintenance economics of many households and
industries. In order to overcome these constraints, a WCO sustainable
collection system can be arranged with restaurants, industries, homes
and schools for reuse in biodiesel production.
Methods of biodiesel production include preheating vegetable or
animal oils, thermal cracking, micro-emulsions and transesterification
which are imperative in improving the viscosity and physical properties
of biodiesel. Transesterification is the most widely used process due to
its low cost and simplicity. The process involves conversion of tri­
glycerides into fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) in the presence of an

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nkosikhona.hlabangana@nust.ac.zw (N. Hlabangana).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajce.2020.10.002
Received 12 July 2019; Received in revised form 20 August 2020; Accepted 5 October 2020
Available online 8 October 2020
1026-9185/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
L.B. Moyo et al.
alcohol and a catalyst (Sahar et al., 2018). Glycerol is produced as a
by-product which can be used in the soap making industry (Marchetti,
Miguel, and Errazu, 2011; Kamaronzaman et al., 2020).
The transesterification process is an equilibrium reaction, however,
upon the reaction completion, there are usually traces of reactants
mixed with the biodiesel compromising the overall purity. Inherently,
purification of the biodiesel will be required to ensure the biodiesel
meets the desired standards (Simsek and Uslu, 2020). A wet washing
process that involves washing with water is one of the commonly used
methods. This method results in a huge quantity of wastewater as a large
amount of water is required for effective removal of contaminants. More
so, this residual water can also be present in the final product, due to
inefficiency of the drying process when biodiesel is washed. This com­
promises the quality of the fuel and is detrimental to engine performance
when in use (Hapońska et al., 2019). Drying processes also increases
energy costs as hot air is used which impacts the economic feasibility of
this purification process. Another commonly adopted method is allow­
ing the products to settle in a vessel and separating by decanting after
each phase formed. This method has drawbacks as it is time consuming
and is not effective in separating pockets of contaminants within the
biodiesel phase. The dry washing process is another method which in­
cludes using ion exchange or adsorbents and has proved to be effective
in producing biodiesel of properties that meet international standards
(Chozhavendhan et al., 2020). However, lower yields are realized due to
part of biodiesel being entrapped in the adsorbent or ion exchange
media. In addition, high capital costs are required for equipment and
adsorption media. Owing to a high thermal and chemical stability
inorganic membranes recently have received attention as an effective
method of purifying biodiesel. Membrane processes have a unique
means of facilitating reaction and separation simultaneously. In bio­
diesel production large oil droplets and glycerol do not permeate
through the membrane. This permits removal of biodiesel from the
reactor overcoming equilibrium constraints which favour a higher yield
of biodiesel production (Kamaronzaman et al., 2020). Moreover, a
membrane reactor allows solid catalyst to be confined within the
membrane, this further ensures less requirements of separating the
biodiesel from unwanted material.
Recently, a high conversion of WCO to biodiesel of 96 wt% was
obtained at optimized experimental conditions of 50 ◦ C, 1:8 WCO oil to
methanol ratio, 1% by weight of catalyst loading rate at a reaction time
of 1.5 h (Degfie, Mamo, and Mekonnen, 2019). However, the use of
membrane technology for biodiesel production has not been extensively
studied particularly the effect of interaction of various parameters that
are critical to the biodiesel yield. This study seeks to investigate the
effects of circulation flow rate of the reactants through an inorganic
membrane which is an important parameter as a membrane process is
pressure driven. Currently, there is no reported data found by the au­
thors on this latter parameter for biodiesel production in membrane
reactors. Also investigated in this study is effect of concentration of the
solid catalyst in the membrane which can result in mass transfer limi­
tations if not adequately supplied or if overloaded. Lastly, temperature is
also investigated which reflects on the energy needs of the process. The
experimental data obtained on variation of these parameters using
central composite was used to optimize the process. Response surface
methodology (RSM) technique was used to build a second order
quadratic model relating these parameters. This research is topical, as it
highlights an important technique that can be used to analyse and
optimize the aforementioned parameters thus increasing the chances of
designing high performing biodiesel production processes using mem­
brane reactors.
2. Experimental approach
2.1. Transesterification
The catalyst was prepared by soaking granular activated carbon
2
South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7
(GAC) in a solution of 5 M which was agitated at ambient temperature
for 24hours. The amount of KOH adsorbed was measured by a gravita­
tional method.
Reactants for the transesterification reaction were prepared in a four-
neck round bottom flask placed on a magnetic stirrer.
2.2. Membrane characteristics
A TiO2/Al2O3 tubular membrane enclosed in PVC housing Atech
Innovations Gmbh Germany was used as the membrane reactor. The
KOH-packed catalyst was maintained within the membrane by incor­
porating sieve plates (150 µm) at the inlet and outlet of the membrane.
Reactor design shown in Fig. 1 was adapted from (Baroutian, Aroua,
Raman, and Sulaiman, 2010) with apparatus numbered as shown in
Table 1. The specifications for the reactor; length 40 cm, inner diameter
1.6 cm, outer diameter 2.54 cm, filtration surface area 0.0201m2. A pore
size of 0.05 µm was selected to ensure the retention of oil molecules
within the membrane.
2.3. Procedure
The WCO was pretreated using methanol and sulphated zirconia. The
free fatty acids (FFA) content of the raw and treated (WCO) was deter­
mined using a standard titration test.
The pretreated WCO was then fed via a peristaltic pump and
chemical-resistant pump tubing into the membrane with KOH-GAC
confined in the membrane. The temperature was limited to a
maximum of 65◦ C to avoid evaporation of methanol, while lower tem­
peratures were avoided as they do not favour the reaction kinetics
(Zabeti, Wan Daud, and Aroua, 2009). The reaction was allowed to
continue for a fixed time of 1 hour and a 9:1 methanol to oil was used.
The retentate stream consisting of unreacted material was recycled to
the 3-neck round bottom flask whilst the permeate stream was collected
in an additional 3-neck round bottom flask.
The products included unreacted WCO in the retentate and glycerol
while methanol and biodiesel formed part of the permeate stream. The
retentate was returned to the 4-neck round bottom flask in order to in­
crease the conversion of unreacted WCO. The permeate was delivered to
an additional round bottom flask. This step was performed to recover
biodiesel and to recycle the unreacted methanol from the permeate
stream. The flask was placed on a heating mantle to evaporate the excess
methanol. Thereafter the alcohol was condensed using a Liebig
condenser and returned to the 4-neck round bottom flask. Response
surface modelling was utilized to deduce the optimal operating condi­
tions. Eight factorial points, six axial points and six centre points are
desired for the central composite method with three variables utilized
constituting twenty experimental runs.
3. Results and discussion
Research has shown that FFA content should be less than 0.5% in the
feed material to avoid saponification during biodiesel production
(Charoenchaitrakool and Thienmethangkoon, 2011).Fig. 2 shows pre­
liminary results to determine FFA content during biodiesel production
without a pre-treatment stage, in that case the FFA content ranged be­
tween 0.15–0.37wt% and increased with increase in KOH to WCO ratio
up to 0.83. This, necessitated the pre-treatment of WCO for all the
samples. The pre-treatment stage was successful in reducing the FFA
content to less than 0.5% as required prior to producing biodiesel. As it
can be seen from the results in Fig. 2, the FFA increases with increase in
catalyst to oil concentration from 0.3 to 0.83% w/w while continuous
increase will further show a decrement. A thin layer of glycerol was
observed upon completion of the esterification process meaning that
most of the FFA content had been converted into biodiesel rather than
glycerol.
Table 2 shows experimental results and how the data was adopted for
L.B. Moyo et al. South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7

Fig. 1. Experimental setup adapted from (Baroutian et al., 2010).

effective separation process compared to other methods which do not

implement this step. The amount of methanol was kept in excess to
favour the production of biodiesel as it was recycled back to the reactor.
The experimental results shown in Table 2 indicate that the catalyst
concentration, circulation flow rate and temperature all have a positive
effect on the biodiesel yield. Circulation flow rate had a statistically
significant effect on the biodiesel yield. A high temperature favoured the
reaction and was essential in reducing the reaction time. It took close to
0.5 h for the separation of the phases at higher temperatures compared
to about 0.25 h when lower temperatures were used. This could have
been due to the increase in solubility of glycerol and methanol with the
esters at higher temperatures. Besides this drawback, the high biodiesel
yield at higher temperatures entails that operating at higher tempera­
tures is more practical as other separation methods such as ion exchange
can be utilized to purify the biodiesel as opposed to decanting which is a
slow process. A high yield of biodiesel at higher temperatures was ex­
pected as the transesterification reaction is endothermic and according
Fig. 2. Free fatty acid titration test runs for treated WCO. to Le Chateliers principle. It was also observed that at higher tempera­
tures the flow of the mixture in the system was easier as there was less
fluctuation in the flow rate. This could have been a result of reduced
Table 1 viscosity of reactants, particularly glycerol which has a high viscosity
Equipment used in the experiment, numbered as shown in Fig. 1.
and will tend to increase frictional resistance thereby achieving low flow
Apparatus rate at lower temperatures.
1. Chemical Resistant pipe 5. 3-Neck round bottom flask (250 mL) There was a significant increase in the conversion to fatty acid
2. Membrane Reactor 6. Magnetic heater methyl esters (FAMES) when the circulation flow rate of the mixture was
3. 4-Neck round bottom flask (250 mL) 7. Peristaltic pump increased. This entails the reaction was susceptible to mass transfer
4. Liebig Condenser 8. Decanter
limitations. The movement of reactants on the catalyst surface involves
displacement of one or more adsorbed components which can be in­
the central composite method where XT represent the coded tempera­ termediate products, spectators or solvent molecules. Therefore, the
ture value, XC -catalyst concentration, XF -circulation flow rate and Yo desorption and adsorption of components play a critical role in the solid-
-biodiesel yield. The distillation process was efficient in the recovery of liquid interface and this is dependant on the circulation flow rate as it
methanol during the transesterification process. This proved to be an introduces this turbulent diffusion effect. An increase in the circulation

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L.B. Moyo et al. South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7

Table 2
Experimental data applied for the central composite rotatable design.
Temperature Catalyst Conc Circulation flow rate Yo
X X X
Run ( ◦ C) wt (%) (mL/min) T C F (%)

1 49 0.7 14 − 1 − 1 − 1 78.7
2 61 0.7 14 1 − 1 − 1 80.8
3 49 1.3 14 − 1 1 − 1 83.2
4 61 1.3 26 1 1 − 1 82.3
5 49 0.7 26 − 1 − 1 1 80.8
6 61 0.7 14 1 − 1 1 84.6
7 49 1.3 26 − 1 1 1 86.5
8 61 1.3 26 1 1 1 92.6
Axial Points
9 45 1 20 − 1.682 0 0 78.8
10 65 1 20 1.682 0 0 92.1
11 55 0.5 20 0 − 1.682 0 81.6
12 55 1.5 20 0 1.682 0 83.3
13 55 1 10 0 0 − 1.682 80.9
14 55 1 30 0 0 1.682 91.8
Centre Points
15 55 1 20 0 0 0 90.0
16 55 1 20 0 0 0 90.6
17 55 1 20 0 0 0 91.6
18 55 1 20 0 0 0 90.9
19 55 1 20 0 0 0 91.0
20 55 1 20 0 0 0 90.3

flow rate resulted in increased mixing intensity. Mixing is imperative in
the transesterification process as oil is immiscible in methanol. Without
mixing the transesterification reaction will only occur at the interface of
the methanol and oil phases which would result in a low conversion. As
the circulation flow rate was increased, the total permeate collected also
increased. According to (Shuit, Ong, Lee, Subash, and Tang, 2012)
concentration polarization is a common problem in membrane separa­
tion which is due to accumulation of retained solute on the interface.
This acts as a barrier and thus the permeate flux is significantly reduced.
Thus increasing the circulation flow rate inhibits the deposition of un­
wanted material on the interface of the membrane.
Upon physical inspection, it was observed that there were no sus­
pended solids nor settled particles and no visible layers in the homo­
geneous phase of biodiesel produced. The permeation rate was directly
proportional to the circulation flow rate and there were minimal fluc­
tuations during each trial, which indicates that there was minimal
fouling due to deposition of unwanted components in the membrane
reactor. This observation confirms that microporous membranes are
effective in separating residual impurities such as suspended matter,
catalyst, and unreacted waste cooking oil from the desired fatty acid
methyl esters. This shows that the ceramic membrane is either resistant
to, alkaline and high temperature conditions, or the high temperature
was effective in countering any fouling since increased temperatures
reduce solution viscosity (Phan and Phan, 2008). The membrane reactor
presents an opportunity for process intensification in this case.
Data from the experiments conducted show that the biodiesel yield
did not change significantly when the catalyst was reused for the same
operating conditions. This shows that the catalyst can be recycled and
reused. The reusability of the catalyst has huge implications on the
reduction of costs for biodiesel production. In addition, the resulting
waste is less because the catalyst is retained in the membrane and this
reduces disposal costs.
methodology is one such tool, which basically aims to create empirical
models which are able to deduce useful statistical relationships between
all the variables in a system based on experimental design (Bas and
Boyaci, 2007). In response surface methodology, input variables and
output responses are generated under a connecting action of the factors
or variables (Myers and Montgomery, 1995). A series of experimental
data was analysed in which the input variables were changed to inves­
tigate their effect on the output response. The central composite design
method was applied for the experimental design. Thus, response surface
modelling and central composite rotatable design have been used in this
study to investigate the optimal conditions of temperature, catalyst
concentration and the WCO/methanol ratio to obtain a good yield of
biodiesel. The fitted second order model obtained through response
surface modelling is shown in Eq. (1);
y = 90.8094 + 2.4683x1 + 1.6673x2 + 2.7671x3 − 2.0138x21 − 3.0840x22 +
− 1.7017x23 − 0.0788x1 x2 + 1.0878x1 x3 − 0.9617x2
(1)
where: x1 – is the coded value for temperature
x2 – is the coded value for circulation flow rate
x3 – is the coded value for catalyst concentration
y – is the response (biodiesel yield)
As one of the objectives of this research was to obtain the optimal
operating conditions, Eq. (1) was used to determine the optimal condi­
tions in excel using the Solver optimization method. The response was
set at maximum, whilst an iteration of the three parameters was con­
ducted to obtain the desired optimal operating conditions. The optimal
conditions are shown in Table 3.
Three-dimensional surface plots of the biodiesel yield were obtained,
using the coded values of the parameters and the biodiesel yield. The
surface plots show that temperature, reactant flow rate, and catalyst

3.1. Response surface modelling (RSM)

Table 3
Derived optimal operating conditions.
In science and engineering research analysis, it is impeccable to link
inputs and outputs. Process are generally difficult to comprehend and Variable Optimal conditions
describe using elemental mathematical models. Tools have been devel­ Temperature ( ◦ C) 58.5
oped which enable more complex modelling and can be used to describe Circulation flow rate (ml/min) 18.78
the influence of each variable in the system and also antagonistic re­ Catalyst concentration (wt%) 1.24
Biodiesel yield (mol%) 94.03
lationships between variables in the system. Response surface

4
L.B. Moyo et al. South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7

concentration have positive effects on the yield of biodiesel. These re­

sults are consistent with those obtained by (Baroutian et al., 2010).
Fig. 3 shows the effect of catalyst concentration and temperature
interactions on the yield of biodiesel at a constant circulation flow rate.
As the temperature increased the biodiesel yield increased significantly,
and this is due to that the trans-esterification reaction is endothermic
and a higher temperature favors the yield of biodiesel. Similarly, an
increase in the catalyst concentration resulted in an increase in biodiesel
yield; this is probably because there are more catalyst particles available
to speed up the reaction within the given reaction time.
Fig. 4 shows that the contour lines are not complete concentric el­
lipses and that suggests that the process is not optimized. The behaviour
of contour lines illustrates the need for additional experiments at higher
temperatures to maximize the yield of biodiesel but that is not feasible
since it is limited by the boiling point of methanol which is 64.5◦ C.
Therefore, the maximum reaction temperature was set at 65◦ C, at which
only a small amount of methanol evaporates due to the mixing effect of
waste cooking oil.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of circulation flow rate and temperature on
the yield of biodiesel at a constant catalyst concentration. Both param­
eters had a positive effect on the biodiesel yield. Fig. 4. Contour plot of biodiesel yield against catalyst concentration and
Fig. 6 shows a noticeable change in the distance between the contour temperature.
lines as the parameters are maximized. This shows that the temperature
and reactant flow rate interaction had a substantial positive effect on the
biodiesel yield at lower conditions than at higher conditions.
Fig. 7 shows that the catalyst concentration and circulation flow rate
interaction had a similar effect as the temperature and catalyst con­
centration interaction. There is a significant increase in the biodiesel
yield due to the interaction of the catalyst concentration and circulation
flow rate. A high circulation flow rate overcomes the mass transfer
limitations and ensures a high mixing intensity between the reactants
and diffusion of reactant particles to the reactant surface. Whereas a
high catalyst concentration on the membrane ensures there is increase in
available active sites to speed up the trans-esterification reaction.
Fig. 8 clearly shows the region within which the stationary point can
be obtained, which is the elliptically shaped region with a biodiesel yield
of 96%. In this region the optimal operating conditions for the circula­
tion flow rate and catalyst concentration can be found at the centre point
of temperature. The catalyst concentration had the greatest effect on the
yield of biodiesel. It can be seen that when catalyst concentration was
kept constant at its centre level with the temperature and yeast circu­
lation flow rate varied (Fig. 6), the least production of biodiesel was
observed.
The data was evaluated using a simple analysis of variance (ANOVA)
Fig. 5. Response surface plot biodiesel yield against temperature and circula­
tion flow rate.

to fit a quadratic response surface model and to assess the quality of the
fit. At the 95% confidence level, the significance of the positives coef­
ficient parameters was determined using the P values (Table 4) which
are less than 0.05 (except catalyst concentration), F model = 13.5
(Table 5), indicating high significance and reliability of the regression
model for predicting biodiesel yield. The p value for catalyst concen­
tration is greater than 0.05 meaning the model does not provide a
satisfactory fit to help analyse biodiesel yield
The results have shown the potential of achieving a two-stage reac­
tion and separation step with the aid of membranes when WCO is con­
verted to biodiesel. The use of catalyst embedded membranes helps
achieve high biodiesel yields. The ability to use experimental data
coupled with RSM was successfully applied to optimize the biodiesel
production process. Overall results have shown that this analysis can be
successfully applied to help design and optimize biodiesel production
processes for a feed of WCO with specific properties.

Fig. 3. Response surface plot of biodiesel yield against catalyst concentration

and temperature.

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L.B. Moyo et al. South African Journal of Chemical Engineering 35 (2021) 1–7

Fig. 8. Contour plot of biodiesel yield against circulation flow rate and catalyst
concentration.

Fig. 6. Contour plot biodiesel yield against temperature and circulation

flow rate. Table 4
Tests on the individual variables quadratic model.
Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value

Intercept 48.69 7.47 6.518 9.71942E-06

Temperature 0.377 0.121 3.128 0.007
Circulation flow rate 0.407 0.121 3.359 0.004
Catalyst concentration 3.372 2.451 1.375 0.190

Table 5
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the fitted model.
df SS MS F

Regression 4 382.152 95.538 13.506

Residual 15 106.107 7.074
Lack of Fit 10 104.408 10.441 30.72
Pure Error 5 1.7 0.340
Total 19 488.259

positive effect on the biodiesel yield with catalyst concentration exhib­

iting the greatest effect. The overall optimal conditions obtained include
a temperature of 58.5◦ C, circulation flow rate of 18.78 ml/min and
catalyst concentration of 1.24 wt%. At these conditions, a biodiesel yield
of 94.03 mol% was obtained.

Fig. 7. Biodiesel yield against catalyst concentration and circulation flow rate. Declaration of Competing Interest

4. Conclusions
WCO is an important feedstock for the production of biodiesel
because of its relative abundance and is less costly. The pretreatment of
the WCO using sulphated zirconia is effective in removing solid mate­
rial, reducing the FFA content and water content. Heterogeneous trans-
esterification using a packed bed membrane reactor is a worthwhile
method of producing biodiesel as high yields of biodiesel were obtained.
The separation of the biodiesel using the membrane reactor is not suf­
ficient as partial separation occurred; the remainder of biodiesel can be
recovered through decanting. This is to separate the biodiesel, glycerol
and methanol mixture after the reaction specifically to obtain the bio­
diesel which has not separated and wash it to further purification. The
heterogeneous catalyst can be reused as there was no significant dif­
ference in the yield upon reuse of the catalyst for the second successive
run. Response surface methodology was effective in obtaining the
optimal conditions of the parameters which include temperature, cata­
lyst concentration, and circulation flow rate. All the parameters had a
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors’ would like to thank Prof Daramola for providing the
membrane reactor and other necessary equipment for the experiments.
This research work was funded by the Chemical Industries Education &
Training Authority (CHIETA), through a bursary grant.
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