Author
Listed:
- Maya Yaghi
(Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh BP 446, Lebanon
IMT-Atlantique, GEPEA UMR-CNRS 6144, 44300 Nantes, France)
- Sandra Chidiac
(Department of Agriculture and Food Engineering, School of Engineering, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh BP 446, Lebanon)
- Sary Awad
(IMT-Atlantique, GEPEA UMR-CNRS 6144, 44300 Nantes, France)
- Youssef El Rayess
(Department of Agriculture and Food Engineering, School of Engineering, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh BP 446, Lebanon)
- Nancy Zgheib
(Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh BP 446, Lebanon)
Abstract
Biodiesel, a renewable and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, has attracted significant attention due to its potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, high production costs and complex processing remain challenges. Heterogeneous catalysts have shown promise in overcoming these barriers by offering benefits, such as easy separation, reusability, low-cost raw materials, and the ability to reduce reaction times and energy consumption. This review evaluates key classes of heterogeneous catalysts, such as metal oxides, ion exchange resins, and zeolites, and their performance in transesterification and esterification processes. It highlights the importance of catalyst preparation methods, textural properties, including surface area, pore volume, and pore size, activation techniques, and critical operational parameters, like the methanol-to-oil ratio, temperature, time, catalyst loading, and reusability. The analysis reveals that catalysts supported on high surface area materials often achieve higher biodiesel yields, while metal oxides derived from natural sources provide cost-effective and sustainable options. Challenges, such as catalyst deactivation, sensitivity to feedstock composition, and variability in performance, are discussed. Overall, the findings underscore the potential of heterogeneous catalysts to enhance biodiesel production efficiency, although further optimization and standardized evaluation protocols are necessary for their broader industrial application.
Suggested Citation
Maya Yaghi & Sandra Chidiac & Sary Awad & Youssef El Rayess & Nancy Zgheib, 2025.
"An Overview of Biodiesel Production via Heterogeneous Catalysts: Synthesis, Current Advances, and Challenges,"
Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-70, July.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jcltec:v:7:y:2025:i:3:p:62-:d:1702327
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jcltec:v:7:y:2025:i:3:p:62-:d:1702327. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.