Production of Biodiesel from Brown Grease

Abstract

Among the renewable energy sources is biodiesel. This fuel is usually produced by catalytic transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats under heating and pressure. Brown grease is a mixture of oils, fats, solids and detergents from food industry wastes that is captured in grease traps. Brown grease is classified as waste and must be treated and disposed of appropriately. It contains oils and fats that can be converted into biodiesel. However, the high concentration of free fatty acids in brown grease does not enable the use of conventional biodiesel production schemes. This study proposes a new scheme for biodiesel production from brown grease. In addition, conditions for the effective separation of a fat phase from brown grease were tested, and the composition of a fatty phase was determined for several grease traps. Esterification and transesterification of brown grease lipids were carried out with methanol, where the Lewis acids BF3 and AlCl3 were used as catalysts and the reaction was activated by ultrasound. The results show that biodiesel can be obtained from brown grease by esterification and transesterification within several minutes under ultrasonic activation at room temperature. These results open prospects for the development of efficient, low-cost and environmentally friendly biodiesel production.

Optimizing the catalytic activities of methanol and thermotolerant Kocuria flava lipases for biodiesel production from cooking oil wastes

“…Moreover, the use of edible oils for biodiesel production gain serious concerns with global food security 46 . As a consequence of that, many researchers have worked on methods for biodiesel production from low-cost and available feedstock such as yellow and brown grease 47 – 49 , linseed 50 , castor 51 and used cooked oils 52 . Non-edible oils and cooked oils contain high contents of free fatty acids (FFA) that can be converted to biodiesel via the esterification process.…”

Yellow and brown grease—characteristics of compression-ignition engine

“…Oil removed from sewers was instead covered under the sewage sludge category expanded to include fats, oils and grease (FOG) from the sewage system, while the separate sewage system FOG category has been deleted. Kolet et al [94] stated that brown grease is a mixture of oils, fats, solids and detergents from food industry wastes that is captured in grease traps. Brown grease contains oils and fats convertable into biodiesel.…”

A comparative study of apricot kernel oil yield using different extraction methods

“…In addition, animal, vegetable, and waste oils can be used as fuels to replace traditional diesel fuels. As the main product of the apricot kernel synthesis process is a fatty acid, it is considered a renewable source of fuel (Jamil et al 2020;Kolet et al 2020). Apricot trees are the largest nut trees in the world, belonging to the Rosaceae family, also known as wild apricot (Haciseferoğullari et al 2007;Wirthensohn et al 2008;Falcó et al 2020;Özcan et al 2020;Vichi et al 2020).…”