Abstract:
Biodiesel is a renewable alternative fuel that is derived from the transesterification of
vegetable oil or animal fat and alcohol using a catalyst. In this research,
transesterification of oil into biodiesel was conducted using a heterogeneous catalyst of
Palas clay that was activated with NaOH and calcinated at 500oC. The method carried out to obtain optimum biodiesel result was done by varying the weight of the catalyst
and percentage of NaOH/clay. The optimum biodiesel produced was 89.92 %, that was
obtained at the condition of the catalyst weight of 3 g, NaOH/clay 20 %, and the mole ratio of oil : methanol (1:6) treated for 8 hours at temperature of 60oC. The optimum
biodiesel produced was characterized by the standards of ASTM (American Standards
for Testing and Materials) including water content, specific gravity, viscosity, carbon residue, acid number, saponification number, iodine number, flash point and cetane
number. The results showed that the optimum biodiesel is in the range of SNI -04-7182- 2006 for biodiesel
