Abstract
Waste cooking oil has high free fatty acid (FFA). It impact to low yield of biodiesel production. Thus, reducing FFA is one of important process as feedstock of biodiesel. This study aims to investigate the optimum condition of three important process variables which are acid concentration, molar ratio of methanol and oil, and irradiation time with the 45oC of irradiation temperature for reducing FFA. The synthesis is assisted by ultrasonic irradiation. It conducted by acid esterification with H2SO4 and methanol. Optimization is conducted by Response Surface Methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD). The optimum condition of response for reducing FFA less than 1% were found to be 7.22:1 of methanol to oil molar ratio, 0.92% wt of H2SO4, and 26.04 minutes of irradiation time. It has been observed that ultrasonic system reduces FFA content significantly compared to conventional method.