Jatropha curcas L. trees have been considered as favorable resources for biodiesel production in China, since they produce non-edible oil in appreciable quantity and can be grown in a large-scale on non-cropped marginal lands and wastelands.

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) has attached much importance to the studies on Jatropha curcas L and made many achievements. The Biomass Group of XTBG has made advances in the production of biodiesel from Jatropha oil.

In their work, hydrotalcite-derived particles with Mg/Al molar ratio of 3/1 were synthesized by a coprecipitation method using urea as precipitating agent, subsequently with (MHT) microwave-hydrothermal treatment, and followed by calcination at 773 K for 6 h. These particles were micro-sized mixed Mg/Al oxides as characterized by SEM and AFM. But actually they were nanosized according to the calculations from XRD data. Because of their strong basicity, the nanoparticles were further used as catalyst for biodiesel production from Jatropha oil after pretreatment. Experiments were conducted with the solid basic catalyst in an ultrasonic reactor under different conditions. At the optimized condition, biodiesel yield of 95.2% was achieved, and the biodiesel properties were close to those of the German standard. The catalyst can be reused for 8 times.

The research observation has been published in Energy 36 (2): 777-784, 2011. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.12.043