Production of Biodiesel from Different Edible Oils

Different vegetable oil based biodiesel (FAMES) were prepared by alkaline transesterification using refined oils as well as waste frying oil (WFO). Methanol and sodium hydroxide are used as catalyst under similar reaction conditions. To ensure the quality of biodiesel produced, a series of different ASTM Standard tests were carried out. In this context, various testwere done including viscosity, carbon residue, specific gravity, corrosion test, flash point, cloud point and pour point. Results revealed that characteristics of biodiesel depend on the feedstock and it is far better than petroleum diesel. Keywords—Biodiesel, Edible oils, Separation. I.INTRODUCTION UELS are particularly important in human life. Their application can be found in various fields including commercial, residential and industrial. About 80% of world’s energy needs are fulfilled by fossil fuels. Liquid biofuels have a positive edge over petroleum fuels. Biofuels are not harmful for environment, abundantly available, sustainable, and more reliable. Biodiesel is a first-generation biofuel which can be made using a simple chemical process from fresh vegetable oil or waste vegetable oils. Biodiesel is amixture of mono alkyl esters with long chain free fatty acids having high performance with environmental benefits. The “Biodiesel” name was first conceived in the USA in 1992 from the National Biodiesel Board. Vegetable oil or animal fat based biodiesel has been suggested as a substitute of diesel in existing diesel engines without any modification mainly due to number of reasons such as availability, renewability, nontoxicity, biodegradability and having low emission [1]. Biodiesel usage as an alternative fuel accomplishes many advantages compared to petro-diesel fuels. Clean burning is a significant property that greatly reduces the pollutant concentration that is threat to the environment. Other properties include less harmful gas emissions, low particulate matter and unburned hydrocarbons and fuel having 10–11% of oxygen thus owing high combustion characteristics. Pure biodiesel, B100, has physical and chemical properties similar to petro-diesel fuels. Various types of feedstock can be a source of producing biodiesel [2]. These include: • Virgin oil feedstock i. Edible: Soya bean, cottonseed, rapeseed, palm, peanut, sunflower, mustard safflower, coconut oil. ii. Non edible: Jatropha, pongamia, neem, rubber seed, mahua, silk cotton tree, camelina, jojoba, and castor oil. Amir Shafeeq is with Institute of Chemical Eng. & Tech. University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan (phone: +92-42-99231261; fax: +92-42-99231159; e-mail: [email protected]). • Animal fats e.g. tallow, yellow grease, lard, chicken fat. • Waste oil e.g. used frying oil. • Algae that can be produced from waste materials like sewage and the land used for production of various food items. The commonly used procedure for making biodiesel is the trans-etherifying the vegetable oil or animal fats with alcohol and an alkali catalyst. Use of biofuels is not new; it was started in mid 1800’s. In those days research was conducted to separate glycerin from oil using transesterification process. A successful attempt of producing an attempt to produce biodiesel from vegetable oils was made by Duffy and Patrick in 1853. In 1893, Rudolf Diesel attempted to use vegetable oils in a CI engine. He used peanut oil as a fuel. The engine worked on peanut oil without any modifications [3]. Later on, diesel engine manufacturers made certain modifications in the engines that only petro-diesel could be suitable and not the vegetable oil. The reason of unsuitability of vegetable oil was due to its higher viscosity. Having less cost, abundance and government subsidies made the fossil based diesel preferred over the vegetable oils. Despite these facts and the large worldwide usage of petro-diesel, production of biodiesel from vegetable oils using transesterification made progress with time. Due to certain problems faced in the direct application, the scientists of various countries continued to work on testing the vegetable oils for the purpose of being used as fuels [4]. G. Chavannein 1937 was successful in patenting his research by developing a suitable method for using the vegetable oils as fuels. In this patent, a process of alcoholysis (also called trans-esterification) of vegetable oils using ethanol was suggested to separate the fatty acids from the glycerol. This initiated the production of biodiesel. Expedito Parentein 1977 was successful to patent a process having industrial application for the production of biodiesel using transesterification. Further research was taken up by South African Agricultural Engineers to use sunflower oil after the transesterification and refining as diesel fuel. Based on this research, Gaskoks (an Austrian company) in 1989 installed the first industrial scale biodiesel plant having a capacity of 30,000 tons of rapeseed oil per year [5], [6]. Later on, a number of biodiesel plants were installed in Europe and other regions of the world. Now, Europe and America have a significant number of fuel stations with biodiesel blends. In recent years, many local governments have initiated different programs to use biodiesel blends. Considerable efforts have been done for the development of vegetable oil derivatives having properties and performance similar to diesel fuels Production of Biodiesel from Different Edible Oils Amir Shafeeq, Ayyaz Muhammad, Noman Hassan, and Rofice Dickson F World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Chemical, Molecular, Nuclear, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Vol:7, No:9, 2013 659 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 7(9) 2013 scholar.waset.org/1999.2/16639 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , C he m ic al a nd M ol ec ul ar E ng in ee ri ng V ol :7 , N o: 9, 2 01 3 w as et .o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 16 63 9