Abstract:
Calcium oxide (CaO) is one of the most commonly used heterogeneous base catalysts in
the biodiesel synthesis process. The high CaCO3 content in the blood clam shell can be
used as a catalyst in the synthesis of biodiesel using crude palm oil (CPO). Biodiesel
production using a KOH/CaO catalyst derived from blood clam shell. KOH/CaO catalyst
was synthesized using the sol-gel method. The catalyst was characterized by using the
Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) to determine the functional groups contained in the
catalyst. The OH functional group has been formed at the wave number 3642,73 cm-1
which indicates Ca(OH)2. Biodiesel was synthesized by varying the weights of the
catalyst (1,2,3 dan 4) wt% for 3 hours at 60 °C, the mole ratio of methanol oil 1:15 with
stirring speed 500 rpm. The maximum biodiesel yield was obtained on a catalyst of
KOH/CaO (1 g KOH) with a catalyst weight of 1 %wt of 94.92%. The characteristics of
the biodiesel produced in this study were a water content, density, viscosity, carbon
residue, acid number, saponification number, iodine number and cetane number. In
general, the characteristics of biodiesel are in accordance with the requirements of SNI
7182-2015.
