Production of biodiesel from local available algae in Jordan

Abstract

The present study aims at producing diesel out of algae. The production of biodiesel was performed at Tafila Technical University laboratories. The algae were brought from Almansora stream at Tafila governorate - Jordan and afterwards dried in an oven at 80 °C for 12 hours. The dried algae were ground using disc mill until powder was obtained. The powdered algae underwent a distillation process with the addition of iron sulphate hydrate to the algae using a distillation column in order to extract the oil. Methanol was added to the oil, which was obtained from the distillation and using potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, the product was then separated in a funnel for about 10 hours until two layers of the solution were obtained; the organic layer represents the biodiesel. The biodiesel attributes are similar to the diesel oil, except that it reduces the emission of carbon dioxide CO2 and there is no emission of sulphur dioxide SO2.