Synthesis and characterization of local biomass supported magnetic catalyst for esterification reaction

Biomass supported solid catalyst have shown significant potential in various applications. Biomass supported magnetic solid catalysts have great advantage, especially in catalyst separation. The present work highlights the preparation of magnetic acid catalyst through a simple and inexpensive in-situ impregnation approach using oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) fiber as support material. The synthesized catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) analyses. XRD result indicates that after calcination at 500 °C, the iron oxide presented on the catalyst was γ-Fe2O3. Magnetization value of 13.3 emu/g proved that the catalyst has good magnetic properties. The resulted catalyst has a strong acid density of 3.2 mmol/g. Catalytic performance was evaluated via the esterification reaction of oleic acid. The effect of catalyst loading was studied to determine the optimum amount of catalyst required for high esterification conversion. This study suggests that magnetically separable catalyst can be easily recovered and a future outlook on the utilization of biomass as support material for the production of economically sustainable catalyst.