As a green material, used date pits oil is increasingly utilized as inexpensive feedstock for ethyl ester (biodiesel) production. Waste date pits as a raw material are one of the highly produced agricultural wastes in Iran. This study investigated the effect of several procedure parameters including the ethanol/oil molar ratio, reaction temperature and amount of catalysts on the yield of the pr...

Biodiesel is an important new alternative transportation fuel. Biodiesel processing and quality are close related. The process used to refine the feedstock and to convert it to biodiesel determines whether the fuel will meet the applicable specifications. In this work, a new characterization method is proposed using an electronic nose coupled to artificial neural networks. Four samples of biodi...

In this study, Jatropha curcas oil was used as feedstock for biodiesel production by alkali-catalyzed methanolysis. To establish the optimum conditions for biodiesel production, effects of certain factors were investigated, these factors are oil-to-methanol molar ratios (1:4 1:8), KOH catalyst concentrations (0.5 1.5% w/w oil), reaction temperatures (50 70oC), and reaction times (55 90minutes)....

Much research has focused on growing microalgae for biofuel feedstock, yet there remain concerns about the feasibility of freshwater feedstock systems. To reduce cost and improve environmental sustainability, an ideal microalgal feedstock system would be fed by municipal, agricultural or industrial wastewater as a main source of water and nutrients. Nonetheless, the microalgae must also be tole...

Reduction of fossil fuels sources, increasing of pollution gases emission, and global warming effects increase the demand of renewable fuels. One of the main candidates of alternative fuels is biodiesel. Biodiesel limits greenhouse gas effects due to the closed CO2 cycle. Biodiesel has more biodegradability, lower combustion emissions such as CO, SOx, HC, PM and lower toxicity than petro diesel...

Algae are known to be a potential feedstock in the production of biodiesel fuel. Although much of the focus has been on microalgal species, macroalgae are also suitable as a source of lipids. In this study, a locally abundant (central Illinois) filamentous algae has been harvested from a water treatment plant; dried to about 10% of its initial weight; pulverized in a hammermill; and treated wit...

Sludge palm oil (SPO) is an attractive feedstock and a significant raw material for biodiesel production. The use of SPO can lower the cost of biodiesel production significantly. In this study biodiesel fuel was produced from SPO by esterification process using P-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA) as acid catalyst in different dosages in presence of methanol to convert free fatty acid (FFA) to fatty a...

Biodiesel is a green fuel produced from renewable resources. It is a clean-burning alternative fuel, which has drawn the attention of energy researchers for the last two decades. This paper presents an experimental investigation on Alexandrian laurel oil as a potential feedstock for biodiesel development. Biodiesel was produced using a two-step esterification–transesterification process. Analys...

A single-step method was developed for biodiesel production from unrefined or waste oils using a series of heterogeneous zinc and lanthanum mixed oxides. Effects of metal oxide molar ratio, free fatty acids (FFA) and water content in feedstock, molar ratio of methanol and oil, and reaction temperature on the yield of biodiesel were investigated. A strong interaction between Zn and La species wa...

The economic feasibilities of four continuous processes to produce biodiesel, including both alkali- and acid-catalyzed processes, using waste cooking oil and the 'standard' process using virgin vegetable oil as the raw material, were assessed. Although the alkali-catalyzed process using virgin vegetable oil had the lowest fixed capital cost, the acid-catalyzed process using waste cooking oil w...