Study on Processing Parameters Such as Temperature, Density and Catalyst Type on Production of Biodiesel Out of Sunflower Oil

Abstract

In the past decade, biodiesel has been noticed as a reproducible, non-toxic and lucrative fuel. This fuel is in fact the FATTY ACID METHYL ESTER which has been resulted from Trans-esterification of Tri-glyceride. It´s expected that biodiesel will be developed throughout the world with a greater pace. With regards to the importance of biodiesel production, 18 samples of this biofuel have been made out of sunflower oil in three reaction temperatures of 60, 70, 80, C with two catalysts (potassium hydroxide & sodium hydroxide) with different weights of 0.5, 1, 1.5 % with 300 rpm agitation intensity under Alcohol to water ratio of 1:5 in 60 minutes period. the consequences showed that the high quality of this biofuel resulted from the catalyst of potassium hydroxide with weight percentage of 1 in comparison to the other two weight percentages of 0.5 & 1.5.