Conventional and Intensified Transesterification Process of Biodiesel Production: A Review

Abstract

The dependency on fossil fuels is growing day by day with the need of drastic energy demand. Due to concern over diminution of fossil fuels, many researchers have focused on the renewable and unconventional sources of energy in the last decades. Alternative Fuels for transportation are one of those areas of research. In this paper, a concise review of various biodiesel production methods have been presented. First of all, conventional method is presented based on the transesterification reaction and later, a few novel techniques such as microwave irradiation aided, solar energy assisted, ultrasonic cavitation etc. have been depicted and the later part of this paper is an effort to discuss the use of solar energy in the biodiesel production to make it a feasible option for future research in the field of biodiesel production on a larger scale in a cost-effective manner