Noncatalytic Biodiesel Fuel Production from Croton megalocarpus Oil

Abstract

Biodiesel is currently considered as the most promising substitute for diesel fuel because of its similar properties to diesel. This study presents the use of the supercritical methanol method in the production of biodiesel from Croton megalocarpus oil. The reaction parameters such as methanol-to-oil ratio, reaction temperature and reaction time were varied to obtain the optimal reaction conditions by design of experiment, specifically, response surface methodology based on threevariable central composite design with a = 2. It has been shown that it is possible to achieve methyl ester yields as high as 74.91 % with reaction conditions such as 50:1 methanol-to-oil molar ratio, 330°C reaction temperature and a reaction period of 20 min. However, Croton-based biodiesel did not sustain higher temperatures due to decomposition of polyunsaturated methyl linoleate, which is dominant in biodiesel. Lower yields were observed when higher temperatures were used during the optimization process. The supercritical methanol method showed competitive biodiesel yields when compared with catalytic methods.

Influence of Fatty Acid Profiles during Supercritical Transesterification of Conventional and Non-Conventional Feedstocks: A Review

“…The yields for longer reaction time are higher than that for shorter reaction time. This is because short reaction time is not sufficient to push the reaction to completion particularly at lower temperature where transesterification rate is slower, while, longer reaction time allows the reaction to attain higher yield even though at low reaction temperature [52]. However, increasing reaction temperature favored higher biodiesel yield for both short and long reaction time.…”

Kinetics of Transesterification of Croton megalocarpus Oil Using Alkaline Earth Catalysts with Conventional and Microwave Heating

“…Reaction rate constants for both the stages were reported. A supercritical noncatalytic and homogeneous catalytic using KOH, transesterification of Croton megalocarpus oil with methanol, gave a first-order reaction for the overall reaction [41]. ese kinetic studies on soybean oil, sunflower oil, palm oil, Jatropha curcas oil, waste cooking oil, and Croton megalocarpus oil show that the observed reaction order varied from zero to two.…”

Technical and Economic Analysis of Conventional and Supercritical Transesterification for Biofuel Production

“…Since fossil fuels have been increasingly consumed and are considered as serious pollutants for the environment within the last 80 years, it is vital to replace them by alternative fuels [1][2][3][4][5]. One method is optimizing the quality of diesel and gasoline fuels by making changes in the formulation [6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”