Heterogeneous transesterification of vegetable oils offers an environmentally more attractive option for biodiesel production compared with the conventional homogeneous processes. Thus, double metallic methoxide catalyst was developed in the present study, aiming to improve the transesterification of low-cost palm stearin (PS) and reduce waste generation. The physicochemical properties of the s...

Biodiesel as an alternative and renewable fuel could be applied in diesel engines in order to reduce air contamination and dependence to fossil fuels. So far, various processes were prepared for biodiesel production, but using transesterification method via base catalyst in batch reactors could result in a reasonable yield of biodiesel. At the present study, a batch tank reactor equipped to a h...

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the use of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) as a potential screening method for monitoring biodiesel production by transesterification of soybean oil with methanol. Soybean oil and commercially available biodiesel were mixed in varying proportions by weight as standards. In addition, mixtures of different biodiesel/soybean oil ratios were also created by...

The aim of this study was to produce microbial oil from Lipomyces starkeyi DSM 70296 grown in hemicellulose hydrolysate (H-H). Glucose and xylose were used for batch, fed-batch, repeated fed-batch, and continuous cultures, and H-H was tested at continuous culture. The highest cell and lipid concentrations of 85.4 and 41.8g/L, respectively, were obtained using repeated fed-batch strategy. Contin...

This study explores the potential of titanium oxide impregnated on calcium oxide (CaO-TiO2) as catalyst in transesterification of vegetable palm oil (VPO) to produce biodiesel. The biodiesel yield increased with catalyst calcination temperature and reaction time, and the usage of CaO-TiO2 led to higher biodiesel production when compared to reaction catalyzed by CaO. Biodiesel yield of 93.33% wa...

In 2004, the United States consumed 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel for on-road transportation (Annual Energy Outlook, 2007; http://www.eia.doe.gov/oifa/aeo/). In an effort to reduce dependence on petroleum-based fuel products and reduce their negative impact on the environment (Hill et al., 2006), production of biofuels from renewable energy sources has experie...

Biodiesel is a green (clean), renewable energy source and is an alternative for diesel fuel. Biodiesel can be produced from vegetable oil, animal fat and waste cooking oil or fat. Fats and oils react with alcohol to produce methyl ester, which is generally known as biodiesel. Because vegetable oil and animal fat wastes are cheaper, the tendency to produce biodiesel from these materials is incre...

Starch is considered a potential feedstock for biofuel production, particularly in light of the large-scale landfilling of food waste and other starchy materials worldwide. Lipid accumulation by oleaginous yeast is a promising method for biodiesel production from starch. However, most oleaginous yeasts are grown on monosaccharides or oligosaccharides because they cannot directly utilize starch....

Enzymatic mode of biodiesel production has recently gained a special attention among researchers because it eliminates the disadvantages of alkaline process such as end product recovery, waste water treatment, energy intensive and etc. Recently, considerable attention has paid in the direct use of intracellular lipase as a whole-cell biocatalyst (i.e immobilization of the enzyme secreting micro...

Biodiesel is usually produced from food-grade vegetable oils that are more expensive than diesel fuel. Therefore, biodiesel produced from food-grade vegetable oil is currently not economically feasible. Waste cooking oils, restaurant grease and animal fats are potential feedstocks for biodiesel. These inexpensive feedstocks represent one-third of the US total fats and oil production, but are cu...