Waste Cooking Oil as an Alternate Feedstock for Biodiesel Production

Abstract

Abstract:As crude oil price reach a new high, the need for developing alternate fuels has become acute. Alternate fuels should be economically attractive in order to compete with currently used fossil fuels. In this work, biodiesel (ethyl ester) was prepared from waste cooking oil collected from a local restaurant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Ethyl alcohol with sodium hydroxide as a catalyst was used for the transesterification process. The fatty acid composition of the final biodiesel esters was determined by gas chromatography. The biodiesel was characterized by its physical and fuel properties including density, viscosity, acid value, flash point, cloud point, pour point, cetane index, water and sediment content, total and free glycerin content, diglycerides and monoglycerides, phosphorus content and sulfur content according to ASTM standards. The viscosity of the biodiesel ethyl ester was found to be 5.03 mm 2 /sec at 40 o C. The viscosity of waste cooking oil measured in room temperature (at 21° C) was 72 mm 2 /sec. From the tests, the flash point was found to be 164 o C, the phosphorous content was 2 ppm, those of calcium and magnesium were 1 ppm combined, water and sediment was 0 %, sulfur content was 2 ppm, total acid number was 0.29 mgKOH/g, cetane index was 61, cloud point was -1 o C and pour point was -16 o C. Production of biodiesel from waste cooking oils for diesel substitute is particularly important because of the decreasing trend of economical oil reserves, environmental problems caused due to fossil fuel use and the high price of petroleum products in the international market. OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2008, 1 4

Production of Biodiesel from Locally Available Spent Vegetable Oils

“…A. B. Chhetri et al [12] used 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%, 1.0% and 1.2% sodium hydroxide as a catalyst and observed that no reaction took place with the 0.4% NaOH. With catalyst concentrations of 0.6%, 0.8% and 1.0%, ester yields were approximately 50%, 94% and 40%, respectively.…”

“…"Bio" represents its biological and renewable source, and "diesel" implies its use as a fuel on diesel engines [11]. Biodiesel is derived from renewable biomass sources thus it represents a closed carbon dioxide cycle (approximately 78%) [12].…”

Biodiesel production from three mixes of oils with high free fatty content: quality evaluation and variable analysis

“…The high viscosity of oils make them not suited for direct use in diesel engines (Chhetri et al 2008); however, the conversion process (transesterification) allows the fuel viscosity and quality properties to shift and be comparable to those of petrodiesel. The results obtained from the samples with the highest biodiesel yield, all fell within the established limits of the ASTM (1.9-6-0 mm 2 /s), with a range between 5.7 and 5.8 mm 2 /s for B100 and 4.0-4.1 mm 2 /s for B20 samples.…”

Feasibility Evaluation of a Biodiesel Plant fed by Recycled Edible Oils Comparing two Alternative Production Technologies

“…They are biodegradable and insoluble in water, but soluble in organic solvents. Beyond their physical characteristics, the degree of denaturation of oil is affected by external factors such as the composition of the food, the frying temperature, exposure to oxygen, heating time and equipment used for frying (Chherti et al, 2008;Papageorgiou, 2009 The quality of waste cooking oils is expected to vary as it depends on the type of vegetable oil used, the different culinary practices and the systems for collection and storage of waste oils (Oliveros et al, 2007). Additionally, different oils are used under the same conditions -high and long exposure time frying temperatures -resulting to different characteristics (Papageorgiou, 2009).…”