الفهرس 
Chapter One : IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Because the world’s supplies of fossil fuels are restricted and they are a major contributor to pollution and global warming, the growing demand for energy will need to be met by alternative energy sources. Among the potential substitutes or novel energy sources are biofuel, wind, and solar power. Petrodiesel lacks certain advantages over biodiesel fuel, which is one of the most popular biofuels. Biodiesel fuel produces less smoke, carbon monoxide, and particulates and is non-toxic. It is also biodegradable. Using an alkali, acid, or nano catalyst to transesterify triglycerides with methanol and produce methyl ester molecules is one of the primary widely used processes for producing biodiesel. The use of nano catalyst in biodiesel production has gained attention due to its high catalytic activity, low cost, and environmental friendliness. The aim of present work is to prepare nano sized CaO, and MgO based catalysts to enhance the production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil and optimize the major transesterification reaction parameters. The produced nano catalysts were characterized by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray scattering, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Thermo gravimetric analysis, and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area analysis. The results showed that the nano calcium oxide and the nano magnesium oxide have high-purity nanoscale crystal sizes with a mean particle size of 32.5 and 67.135 nm, good thermal stability, and a high specific surface area of 80.69 and 60.2 m2/g, respectively. Response surface methodology is applied to predict the optimum parameters to produce the biodiesel based on its yield. Optimal conditions for the process were obtained at 6:1, and 7:1 methanol to oil ratio, at temperatures 70 and 50 °C for 80 and 60 min, and the yield of biodiesel was predicted to be 97 and 89 % using nano calcium oxide and nano magnesium oxide, respectively. The results of the practical confirmatory experiments were found to be in good agreement with the predicted outcomes and to be quite close to them. The biodiesel produced was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Various properties of biodiesel were evaluated according to the American Standard (ASTM D6571). The biodiesels were blended as NC (CaO) B10, 20, 30 (10, 20, and 30% biodiesel using nanocatalyst CaO) and NC (MgO) B10, 20, 30 (10, 20, and 30% biodiesel using nanocatalyst MgO), which were then used to study the effect on the performance and exhaust emissions on the diesel engine and compare them with petrodiesel, which showed favorable results for the air-fuel ratio, specific fuel consumption, exhaust gas temperature, thermal efficiency, and concentrations of CO, CO2 and O2 emissions from the biodiesel blend.