Production of Environment Friendly Diesel Fuel from Sunflower Oil over Iraqi Limestone Synthesized Catalyst

An environment friendly diesel fuel with remarkable characteristics that is basically methyl esters was synthesized from the reaction of sunflower oil (tri-glycerides) with methanol in a batch reactor using a heterogeneous catalyst with a conversion of 94% and very favorable characteristics. The heterogeneous catalyst used in this research was in the form of fine powder and synthesized from Iraqi limestone through calcination at 900 °C for 2.5 h under air. The raw limestone synthesized catalyst was characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX and BET analysis.