Literature search shows that research on feed stocks for the production of biodiesel in Africa have not been well documented. To close this gap, a research project was initiated to measure the fuel and physicochemical properties of common vegetable oils in Nigeria. The works on cashew nut oil has been reported and that of rubber seed oil is being reported in this paper. Rubber tree seed oil has several industrial applications but not all the fuel and physicochemical properties are available in literature, hence the aim of this study is to provide the properties of not only the oil but also the biodiesel, 20% and 10% blends with diesel. For the purpose of characterization, the oil was extracted by soxhlet extraction and the free fatty acids was measured and found to be 23.68 % which can react with the sodium hydroxide catalyst to form soaps that can inhibit the separation of the esters and glycerin. To prevent this, acid catalyst was first used to neutralize and reduce the high level of free fatty acids in the oil to less than 2% before using sodium hydroxide for the transesterification process. The resulting biodiesel was washed, dried and blended 20% and 10% with diesel. The fatty acid profiles were determined by chromatography analyzer and the oil was found to be unsaturated. The characterization of the oil, its biodiesel, and the blends were done according to ASTM and EU methods and the results obtained show that the properties of the biodiesel and blends are similar to those of diesel which shows conclusively that it can be used as alternative fuel for diesel engines.
The need for quality control of biodiesel is important to ensure the development of a clean, trouble free and safe alternative fuel technology to fossil diesel. In this work, the gas chromatography analysis of the biodiesel produced from used frying oil was carried out using PerkinElmer Clarus 500 Gas Chromatograph (GC), fitted with a capillary split injector and Fourier Infrared Detector (FID). Also, the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy was used to determine and monitor the concentration of biodiesel produced from used and unused palm olein oil. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis was carried out using the FTIR Spectroscopy (FTIR 1-S Shimadzu, Japan, Model 4100) and Microlab software as well as Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) sample interface system. 0.5 ml of samples of the unused palm olein oil and biodiesel were taken in at the interface at a resolution of 4 cm-1 within the region of 4000 cm-1 to 400 cm-1 . The GC-MS analysis did not indicate any soap-like material, indicating that the catalyst was able to handle transesterification reaction without transition to saponification reaction. The results of the interaction between the components of the fuel samples and the radiation as a function of wavelength indicates the functional groups and the type of vibration in the fuel samples. The results obtained indicate the presence of an intense band of C=O stretching of methyl ester and O-CH3 group. It also show concentration of the five main fatty acids that are present in most biodiesel; palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and linolenic acids indicating the successful transesterification of palm olein oil to biodiesel.
Abstract:The effect of five process parameters namely: reaction time, reaction temperature, stir speed, catalyst concentration and methanol-oil ratio on the transesterification process of waste frying oil to biodiesel were investigated. Optimization of the five process parameters and their quadratic cross effect was carried out using a four level-five factor central composite experimental design model and response surface methodology with each factor varied over four levels. Taking the biodiesel yield as the response of the designed experiment, the data obtained were statistically analysed to get a suitable model for optimization of biodiesel yield as a function of the five independent process parameters. The optimization produced 30 feasible solutions whose desirability equals to 1 and the selected (most desirable) condition was found to be: reaction time (3 hrs), reaction temperature (58°C), stir speed (305.5 rpm), catalyst concentration (1.4 wt%) and methanol to oil ratio (6:1), while the optimum yield of biodiesel for this condition was found to be 91.6%. The developed model was tested and validated for adequacy by substituting random experimental values as input parameters and the output parameters from the developed model were close to the experimental values. The biodiesel properties were characterized and the results obtained were found to satisfy the standard for both the ASTM D 6751 and EN 14214.
The aim of this study is to measure the fuel and physiochemical properties of cashew nut oil, its biodiesel and blends with diesel fuel. The oil was extracted by soxhlet extraction method and transesterified with methanol using sodium hydroxide as catalyst. The resulting biodiesel was washed, dried and blended 20% (B20) and 10% (B10) with diesel. They were characterized following the ASTM and EN protocols and the fatty acid profile was determined by chromatography analyzer. The result obtained shows that the properties of the biodiesel are close to those of diesel and can thus be used as alternative fuel for diesel engines.
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