Biodiesel production from Argemone mexicana seed oil using crystalline manganese carbonate

This communication explores the feasibility of biodiesel production from a weed plant Argemone mexicana seed oil and an efficient catalyst crystalline manganese carbonate. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study making use of pure, crystalline, ash colored manganese carbonate as a heterogeneous catalyst for the production of methyl esters as fuel from Argemone mexicana seed oil. The optimum process conditions for the conversion of Argemone mexicana oil to its methyl ester by transesterification required 1% manganese carbonate as catalyst with alcohol to oil ratio 5:1 at 60°C to yield biodiesel of 99.99% purity. The methyl esters obtained were examined by Gas chromatography analysis.