Vegetable Oils and Animal Fats

Abstract

This chapter covers the use of vegetable oils and animal fats in fuel engines. Edible and inedible vegetable oil resources, vegetable oil processing, The use of vegetable oils in diesel engines, physical and chemical properties of vegetable oils, direct use in diesel engines, pyrolysis and cracking products from vegetable oils, furthermore, processing conditions as well as alternative use facilities of the products have been discussed briefly in this chapter. The greatest drawback of using pure vegetable oils as fuels are their high viscosity, although this can be reduced by techniques such as dilution, micro-emulsification, pyrolysis or transesterification. Of these processes, the transesterification of vegetable oil triglycerides in supercritical methanol has been shown to be particularly promising, producing high yields of low-viscosity methyl esters without the need of a catalyst. Furthermore, these methyl esters have considerably lower flash points than those of pure vegetable oils.