PRODUCTION OF BIODIESEL FROM NON- EDIBLE OIL (WCO)

Abstract

Today world’s energy demands are increasing day by day due to increase in population, standard of living, industrialization& urbanization and which are mostly fulfilled by fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are non-renewable so its reserves are getting declined and also it is environmentally unreasonable. This made an interest in the area of alternative fuels. Biodiesel can be good alternative fuel because of its renewability and environmental benefits and apart from this it can be a strategic source of energy for the countries which doesn’t have oilfields. Biodiesel can be produced from edible, non-edible, algae and waste cooking oils. There are four primary ways to make biodiesel, direct use and blending, micro-emulsions, thermal cracking (pyrolysis) and Transesterification. The most commonly used method is transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats. This investigates the transesterification reaction of refined vegetable oils by means of ethanol, using sodium methoxide and sodium hydroxide as catalysts. Particularly, the objective of this work was to prepare ethyl esters with the two different homogeneous catalysts, while the reaction had been carried out in one step. Afterwards, the resulting products were evaluated regarding the physicochemical properties.