FFA Adsorption from Waste Oils or Non-Edible Oils onto an Anion-Exchange Resin as Alternative Method to Esterification Reaction Prior to Transesterification Reaction for Biodiesel Production

Abstract

Biodiesel is an alternative source of energy in diesel engines in its neat form or as a blend with conventional diesel fuel. The raw feedstock costs represent a lot of the overall biodiesel production cost. Therefore, the employment of waste oils or non-edible oils (which do not compete with edible oils) as feedstock for biodiesel production are presented as the best alternative. However, the presence of free fatty acids (FFA) in these oils is undesirable for biodiesel production due to the transesterification reaction performance is reduced. Hence, in this paper, the adsorption as treatment for reducing or removing FFA from oils prior to transesterification reaction for biodiesel production is examined using a strong anion-exchange resin in order to avoid esterification reaction employed commonly prior to transesterification reaction. Journal of Advanced Chemical Engineering