Current Status of Biodiesel Production in Baja California, Mexico

As a result of declining oil reserves in the world, the rise in fossil fuel prices and growing interest in the environment, there is considerable demand for alternative fuels. Biodiesel is recognized like the "green fuel" and has several advantages compared to diesel. It is safe, renewable, nontoxic, and biodegradable (98% biodegradable in a few weeks). Contains less sulfur compounds, and has a high-flash point (> 130°C). Biodiesel could replace diesel and can be used in any compression ignition engine without modification techniques (Leung et al., 2010). It is an alternative biofuel which has a positive energy balance in their life cycle. In terms of effective use of fossil energy resources, biodiesel yields around 3.2 units of fuel product energy for every unit of fossil energy consumed in the life cycle. By contrast, petroleum diesel’s life cycle yields only 0.83 units of fuel product energy per unit of fossil energy consumed (Kiss et al., 2006). Chemically, biodiesel is a mixture of methyl esters of long chain fatty acids and is formed from vegetable oils, animal fats or waste oils and fats through transesterification in the presence of a catalyst (Ma & Hanna, 1999). A general equation for the transesterification (where R is the remainder of the molecule of triglyceride, fatty acid R1 and R2 is the length of acyl acceptor) is: Catalyst RCOOR1 + R2OH RCOOR2 + R1OH