Production and Characterization of Biodiesel from Non-Edible Oil by Transesterification

Abstract

Biodiesel, a renewable and biodegradable fuel produced from vegetable oilsand fats, offers an alternative to petroleum diesel, and using non-edible oils as the feedstock avoids competition with food supply. This paper reports theproduction and characterization of biodiesel from a non-edible oil bytransesterification. The oil was converted to biodiesel by base-catalysedtransesterification with methanol, the effect of the catalyst concentration onthe yield was studied to identify the optimum, and the fuel properties of thebiodiesel produced were measured and compared with standard specifications. The results show that the transesterification produced a highyield of biodiesel, that the yield increased with catalyst concentration up to an optimum beyond which it declined owing to soap formation, and that the fuel properties of the biodiesel, including density, viscosity, flash point, acid value, and cetane number, met the standard specifications. The study demonstrates that the non-edible oil is a suitable feedstock for producing biodiesel of acceptable quality by transesterification.  KEYWORDS: Biodiesel, Transesterification, Non-Edible Oil, Fuel Properties, Renewable Energy, Catalyst, Fatty Acid Methyl Esters