The need to provide information on the most suitable degumming process that could be used for the pre-treatment of the oil extracted from Jatropha curcas seed for high-quality biodiesel production necessitated this study. A heterogeneous catalyst for the transesterification process was synthesised from the Jatropha curcas seed husk and characterised using a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectrophotometer, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrophotometer. The characterisation of the heterogeneous catalyst produced from the Jatropha curcas shell with SEM analysis showed a spongy-like interwoven microstructure surface morphology. The results of FT-IR and XRF confirmed the existence of a high percentage of potassium, which played a pivotal role in the catalytic process. The study showed that the extracted oil contained a substantial amount of FFA, measuring 5%, which, after using ionic, top and acid degumming processes, the FFA reduced to 1.55%, 2.96% and 2.54%, respectively. Process modelling and optimisation indicated that optimal conditions were 4.968 wt% catalyst loading, 17.934:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil, 5.879 h as time of reaction and a corresponding 65.948% yield of biodiesel. From the statistical evaluation, the model had a p value which was lower than 0.0001, and a difference between the adjusted R2 and predicted R2 of <0.2, which confirmed the fact that the model was significant for biodiesel production.
Adeagbo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.