Surfactant containing Ca/MCM-41 as a highly active, green and reusable catalyst for the transesterification of canola oil

•The effect of template occluded in Ca/MCM-41 in canola oil transesterification•High FAME yield over template-containing catalyst•Reduced pollutants released to the environment•Reusable and cost effective catalyst

Ordered mesoporous Ca incorporated MCM-41 was synthesized via direct synthesis (DS) and template ion exchange (TIE) methods. Removal of the surfactant occluded in Ca/MCM-41 pores has been performed by using two procedures; solvent extraction and calcination. For comparison, a series of template-containing mesoporous Ca/MCM-41 was also synthesized without surfactant removal. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, SEM-EDX, TGA, and FT-IR. Activities of Ca/MCM-41 catalysts were tested for the transesterification reaction of canola oil with methanol. The effect of synthesis method and cationic template on catalytic activity of Ca/MCM-41 catalysts was investigated. A high FAME yield of 95% was obtained over template-containing Ca/MCM-41 catalyst. This high activity is due to the presence of strong basic sites. It was also found that this catalyst can be easily recovered from the reaction mixture and reused without loss of its catalytic activity because the organic template inside the pores does not leach during the reaction.

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