Optimization of Base-Catalyzed Transesterification Reaction of Used Cooking Oil

Abstract

Biodiesel is one of the environmentally friendly alternative liquid biofuels that has proven itself commercially, with international standards all around the world. Industrial and scientific studies on reducing biodiesel production costs are one of the major contributions that have strengthened the position of biodiesel commercially. The type of vegetable oil used for biodiesel production is the parameter that has the greatest effect on biodiesel production cost. For this reason, investigations on the types of no-to-low-cost vegetable oils become crucial. In this study, the optimum conditions for biodiesel production from restaurant-originated used cooking oil (which is composed primarily of oleic and linoleic acids) and the refining procedure were investigated. A refining method of "washing with hot water" was used for biodiesel refinement. One of the properties of biodiesel that has an influence on biodiesel purity is glycerin content. In the refining studies, the effects of glycerin amount, used washing water amount, and the number of washing steps were discussed and biodiesel that meets EN 14214 standards was produced.

Qualitative Analysis of Transesterification of Waste Pig Fat in Supercritical Alcohols

“…Waste cooking oils and animal fats are intriguing feedstock because they are two to three times cheaper than refined vegetable oils and are abundantly available to fulfill the market demand for biodiesel production [8]. Although carbon dioxide generated from the combustion of biodiesel from pig fat cannot be recycled by photosynthesis, the reduction of cost is one of the major factors in selecting it as the raw material.The necessity of using low-cost feedstock has been anticipated by several research groups that have conducted studies on biodiesel production from mutton tallow [9], bovine fat [10], lard [11] and waste cooking oils [12,13], either by the base-or acid-catalyzed methods. As pork is one of the major food item in Korea, the amount of waste pig fat generated is enormously high, the reason why pig fat has been used as raw material in this study.…”

Production optimization and quality assessment of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil

“…Since the prices of edible vegetable oils, e.g. soybean oil, are higher than that of diesel fuel, waste vegetable oils (Encinar, et al, 2005;Felizardo, et al, 2006;Dorado, et al, 2002;Cetinkaya and Karaosmanolu, 2004) and non-edible crude vegetable oils as Jatropha, Pongamia pinnata (Karmee and Chadha, 2005) and tigernut oil (Ugheoke, et al, 2007) have been intensively investigated as potential low priced biodiesel sources. Biodiesel made from these feedstocks was predicted to be more economical than the biodiesel produced from refined vegetable oil.…”

Biodistillate Transportation Fuels 1. Production and Properties

“…Water washing is typically employed to remove glycerol from biodiesel, but several washes -with intermediate separation steps -are required. (87) Clearly, any process that avoids glycerol formation offers an advantage in this area.…”