Production of biodiesel from unused algal biomass in Punjab, India

Abstract

Biodiesel from inedible sources has become prominent in last few decades. But it is economically incompatible with petroleum diesel. At the same time, both petro-diesel and biodiesels are concerned with environmental pollution, global warming, etc. Algae, on the other hand, utilize CO 2 for their growth and can minimize some sort of pollution level and results in carbon credit for a country. In Punjab, India, algae are seen to grow in many water bodies. But all those are taken away and dumped in vats. Some of this huge biomass was used for production of biodiesel in this work. Extraction of oil from algae was conducted by using Soxtherm (solvent extraction). An amount of 9 wt% of algal oil was extracted by comparatively costly hexane, whereas 8% extraction was done by cheaper acetone. In the transesterification reaction, molar ratio (methanol: oil) of 6:1, catalyst (KOH) concentration of 3 wt%, reaction temperature of 60°C, 60 min reaction time and a settling time of 2.5 h were found to be optimum conditions to get maximum ester with minimum free fatty acid content and viscosity. A statistical analysis for the transesterification procedure also showed a methanol-to-oil molar ratio of 6:1 and catalyst concentration of 3 wt% to be the optimum. Characterization of biodiesel was done and compared with ASTM/BIS standards. Most important properties of biodiesel ester like viscosity (3.12 cSt or 3.12 mm 2 /s), cloud and pour point (-1 and -6°C, respectively), flash and fire point (153 and 158°C), carbon residue content (0.03%), acid number (0.36 mg of KOH/gm) were within the range of concerned standards.

Biodiesel Production form Spirulina Microalgae and its impact on Diesel Engine Characteristics-Review

“…Kammakar et al [21] studied the production of biodiesel from microalgae oil by transesterification reaction. Methanol is used along with KOH as the catalyst.…”

Fuel properties and emission characteristics of biodiesel produced from unused algae grown in India

“…was collected from their sites for this experiment and kept in the sun for seven days for complete drying. Extraction of oil from the dry algae was done by solvent extraction using a SOXTHERM apparatus (Fernández et al 2010;Silva et al 2011), and n-hexane was used as a solvent (Karmakar et al 2018). All the samples of algae were ultrasonically treated before use.…”

“…So, the main properties of biodiesel such as the acid number, calorific value, viscosity, density, flash point, fire point, cloud point, pour point, ash content and carbon residue content (Karmakar et al 2018) were studied using standard methods (Table 3). Three replications were done for all the tests, and their means were calculated.…”

A review on prospective production of biofuel from microalgae

“…Algal oil was extracted from the algae collected from Simlapuri Nahar, Ludhiana, Punjab. 9 wt% and 8 wt% of oil was gained using costly hexane and inexpensive acetone respectively [ 51 ]. Lipids extracted from various microalgae and the method of application is given in Table 2 .…”