Bio-fuel additive synthesized from levulinic acid using ionic liquid-furfural based carbon catalyst: Kinetic, thermodynamic and mechanism studies

•New carbon-based catalyst from ionic liquid – furfural mixtures used for reaction.•Kinetic models were developed to describe the esterification reaction.•Pseudo first-order kinetic model fitted-well with experimental data.•Thermodynamic parameters: Ea, ΔG‡, ΔS‡., ΔH‡ were obtained for the reaction system.•Combination of nucleophilic substitution and Eley-Rideal as postulated mechanism.