The new ultrasound-assisted method for biodiesel production is
faster and easier to handle than traditional procedures, the instrumentation
is significantly cheaper, and the method works under
safer conditions (i.e. no high temperature and/or pressure). This
study demonstrated that Na supported on SiO2 can use to catalyze
transesterification of J. curcus oil and methanol using ultrasonic
irradiation for biodiesel production with the conversion closely
to the conventional method. As a result ultrasonic irradiation is a
fast alternative to the usual process together with high product
yield. This brings about considerable fully ecologically and
economically friendly. The major advantages of the present system
include operational simplicity, mild reaction conditions, low reaction
time, high conversion and reusability. Property of J. curcus
methyl esters such as acid value, viscosity, density, and cetane
number were within the limits of ASTM and BIS standards (Table
3). Since ultrasonication could reduce the transesterification reaction
time to 15 min compared to over 6 h necessary for convention
processing. Moreover this method can be effectively used for continuous
production of biodiesel by using plug flow and CSTRs
system.