الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The output of focus on development in the transportation sector is the introduction of new concepts, including green energy, renewable resources, sustainable development and eco-friendly process. Non-regenerative petroleum reserves will be depleted in the future because of the high rate of consumption. This challenge motivates the growing trend to innovate new technologies and regenerative feedstocks to face these challenges in the future. Biodiesel is the monoalkyl esters of long chain fatty acids, which present in edible and non-edible vegetable oils or animal fats. Biodiesel can be synthesized using homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts for acid or base catalyzed processes. Heterogeneous solid catalysts have the ability to eliminate most issues caused by homogeneous catalysts in biodiesel production. Sulfonic acid based porous materials have been attracting the attention in acid catalyzed processes that can process waste vegetable oils which contain a high percent of free fatty acids (FFAs).The present work involves the preparation of heterogeneous catalysts based on sulfonated crosslinked polystyrene nanocomposites. The degree of crosslinking was changed to get different materials with different pore size and surface area. The insertion of inorganic nanofillers forming nanocomposite via chemical bonding by bulk polymerization was studied using organically modified montmorillonite (MMT), and organically modified mesoporous silica (SBA-15). The prepared materials were also further crosslinked and sulfonated to anchor sulfonic acid groups acting as Brønsted acid for catalytic performance. The organic-inorganic nanocomposite catalysts showed a higher surface area and thermal stability than the parent organic polymer based on polystyrene. The synthesized organic catalysts and organic-inorganic nanocomposite catalysts were tested in the biodiesel production from the esterification reaction of oleic acid and methanol at moderate operating conditions.The catalysts characterization was performed using FTIR, XRD, TGA and surface area. The new materials have overcome the commercial Amrberlyst catalyst. The new materials have a pore size in mesoporous range, narrow pore size distribution, and high surface area. Also, they exhibit higher acidity, thermal stability, and catalytic activity as well as strong Brönsted and Lewis acid sites than parent organic polymer. The thesis organized into three chapters; the first chapter deals with the introduction, the second deals with materials, methods and physicochemical characterization respectively, while the third chapter shows the results and discussions of the physicochemical characterization of the prepared materials and their catalytic activity.