Production of biodiesel from natural vegetable oils

Abstract

One of the most important renewable resources of energy nowadays is biofuel. Biofuels can be defined as solid, liquid, or gas fuel derived from recently dead biological material which differ it from fossil fuels. They are categorised into two types: biofuels that are produced from agriculture products including crops, plants and current forests. Agriculture sources produce two main products: ethanol and biodiesel, but we study only biodiesel. The aim of this work is production of biodiesel extracted from natural vegetables oil: soybean and sunflower oils, by the process of transesterification, under laboratory conditions. Biodiesel is a diesel-type fuel made by separating glycerin from vegetable oil to create methyl esters. In this process, the alkoxy group of an ester compound is exchanged with another alcohol. These reactions are often catalysed by the addition of an acid or base. In this study we used methyl alcohol and potassium hydroxide. Biodiesel is produced in pure form (100% biodiesel or B100), and is blended with petrodiesel, 6% (B6) and 10% (B10). These analyses are made at the Organic Chemistry and Technology Laboratory, and we will continue for further analyses with different vegetable oils.