Extraction and Determination of Physico-chemical Properties of Oil from Watermelon Seeds (Citrullus lanatus L) to Use in Internal Combustion Engines

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to investigate the physicochemical properties of watermelon seeds and oil and to find out if this oil is suitable and compatible with diesel engines. The results showed that the watermelon seeds had the maximum length (9.08 mm), width (5.71mm), thickness (2.0 mm), arithmetic mean diameter (5.59 mm), geometrical mean diameter (4.69 mm), sphericity (51.6%), surface area (69.07), volume 0.17 cm3 and moisture content 5.4%. The oil was liquid at room temperature, with a density and refractive index of 0.945 and 1.4731 respectively acidity value (1.9 mgNaOH/g), free fatty acid (0.95 mgNaOH), iodine value (120 mgI2/100g), saponification value (180 mgKOH/g), antiradical activity (46%), peroxide value (7.5 mEqO2/Kg), induction period (6.2 h), fatty acid: palmitic acid (13.1%), stearic acid (9.5 %), oleic acid (15.2 %) and linoleic acid (61.3%). Straight non food vegetable oils can offer a solution to fossil fuels by a cleaner burning with minimal adaptation of the engine. A single cylinder air cooled diesel engine Ruggerini RY 50 was used to measure emissions of various blends of watermelon oil (WO) and diesel fuel (WO10D90, WO20D80, WO30D70 and WO75D25). The physic-chemical properties of the oil influence the combustion process and emissions leading to the reduction of NOX and the increase in CO, CO2 and HC.

Valorization of apricot, melon, and watermelon by-products by extracting vegetable oils from their seeds and formulating margarine

“…Seed oils extracted from Cucumis melo L. growing in west Algeria possess much higher acidity and peroxide values compared to those found in this present study which are respectively 4.01 mg KOH/g and 2.25 meq O 2 /kg (Mulengi et al, 2016). Oil from watermelon from Romania showed a moderate AV of 1.9 mg KOH/g and very high PV of 7.5 meq O 2 /kg (Dumitru and Tutunea, 2017). AV and PV of seed oils extracted from some Cucurbitaceae including melon and watermelon ranged from 8.95 ± 0.84 to 9.60 ± 0.87 mg KOH/g oil and from 1.04 ± 0.11 to 9.56 ± 0.97 meq O 2 /kg oil, respectively (Rezig et al, 2019).…”

“…Refractive index of MSO from Algeria was 1.470 (Mulengi et al, 2016). The seeds oil of watermelon from Romania showed density of 945 and refraction index of 1.4731 (Dumitru and Tutunea, 2017). Refractive index value of the cold-pressed watermelon seed oil was 1.4696 (Ok and Yilmaz, 2019) and those extracted with n-hexane by Soxhlet has refractive index of 0.998 (Oragwu, 2020).…”

Degumming Role of Sunflower Oil (Helianthus annuus) on Biodiesel Quality

“…Distilled water (30 mL) was added then titrated slowly with sodium thiosulfate solution (0.1 N) in the presence of a starch solution (1%) as an indicator. PV is expressed as the milliequivalent of the O 2 Kg "1 sample [15,17].…”

“…The density was determined at 15°C using a 50 mL bottle pycnometer that was washed thoroughly with detergent, water and petroleum ether according to method described in AOAC (2005) [17,18].…”

Obtaining Biodiesel with High Oxidation Stability from the Oil Blend Extracted from Seeds of Citrullus lanatus and Vitis vinifera

“…The biodiesel was produced by alkali catalyzed transesterification process, figure 3 and 4 in biochemistry laboratory of Chemistry Department of University of Craiova. The peroxide value (mEqO 2 kg -1 oil), iodine value (gI 2 100 g -1 oil), acid value (mgNaOH g -1 oil) and induction period (h) was determined monthly according to [14,26,27].…”