The planned expansion of biofuel plantations in Brazil could potentially cause both direct and indirect land-use changes (e.g., biofuel plantations replace rangelands, which replace forests). In this study, we use a spatially explicit model to project land-use changes caused by that expansion in 2020, assuming that ethanol (biodiesel) production increases by 35 (4) x 10(9) liter in the 2003-202...

The motivation for this research was to determine the influence of public policies on economic feasibility of producing algal biodiesel in a system that produced all its energy needs internally. To achieve this, a steady-state mass balance/unit operation system was modeled first. Open raceway technology was assumed for the production of algal feedstock, and the residual biomass after oil extrac...

Canola (Brassica napus L., Brassicaceae) research in Virginia began in the mid 1980s. A concerted and focused cooperative effort was initiated, with USDA-CSREES-National Canola Research Program funds, in 1993 by Virginia’s two Land Grant Universities: Virginia State University and Virginia Tech. A major goal of this effort, until recently, has been establishment of canola as a domestic source o...

background: microalgal lipid is a promising feedstock for biodiesel production. the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of cultivation temperature on the growth and lipid accumulation properties of nannochloropsis oculata microalgae. methods: nannochloropsis oculatacan grow in a wide range of temperatures (5 ~ 35°c). late in the stationary growth phase of microalgae, biomass...

Biodiesel is attracting increasing attention worldwide as a blending component or a direct replacement of petroleum diesel fuel in transport sector.The challenge to scientists and engineers is to identify appropriate feedstocks for biodiesel production. The majority of potential feedstocks are edible species which are at the centre of the “fuel versus food” debate. It is therefore imperative fo...

The synthesis of fatty acid ethyl ester from chicken fat waste using ZnO/SiO2 heterogeneous catalyst was carried out using two-step procedures of acid pretreatment by esterification and transesterification of the pretreated oil. The first step reduces the high free fatty acid in the oil to an acceptable level for transesterification using concentrated sulphuric acid at a temperature of 60 oC du...

BACKGROUND Microbial lipids represent a valuable alternative feedstock for biodiesel production when oleaginous microbes are cultured with inexpensive substrates in processes exhibiting high yield and productivity. In this perspective, crude glycerol is among the most promising raw materials for lipid production, because it is the costless residual of biodiesel production. Thus, cultivation of ...

In this study, biodiesel production from microalgal oil by microwave-assisted transesterification was carried out to investigate its efficiency. Transesterification reactions were performed by using Chlorella protothecoides oil as feedstock, methanol, and potassium hydroxide as the catalyst. Methanol:oil ratio, reaction time and catalyst:oil ratio were investigated as process parameters affecte...

BACKGROUND Enzymatic biodiesel is becoming an increasingly popular topic in bioenergy literature because of its potential to overcome the problems posed by chemical processes. However, the high cost of the enzymatic process still remains the main drawback for its industrial application, mostly because of the high price of refined oils. Unfortunately, low cost substrates, such as crude soybean o...

BACKGROUND Transesterification catalyzed by solid base catalyst is a brilliant technology for the noble process featuring the fast reaction under mild reacting condition in biodiesel production. Heterogeneous base catalysts are generally more reactive than solid acid catalysts which require extreme operating condition for high conversion and biodiesel yield. In the present study, synthesis of b...