TRANSESTERIFICATION OF VEGETABLE OIL

Abstract

Diminishing petroleum reserves, increasing demand, soaring crude oil price and environment degradation; have increased the interest in alternative fuels which are renewable, sustainable, biodegradable, non-toxic and environment friendly, such as Biodiesel. Biodiesel production by transesterification of non edible oils is getting tremendous attentions from researchers worldwide. It is mainly synthesized by homogeneous transesterification of vegetable oils. But many problems associated with homogeneous transesterification; increases production cost of biodiesel due various separation steps, waste water generation and saponification. Therefore, focus is being shifted to heterogeneous transesterification. To get insight into synthesis of biodiesel, results of a recently published paper on homogeneous transesterification of soybean oil have been reproduced. Jatropha and Karanja oil; both being non edible; are potential feedstocks from Indian prospective. Karanja is an underutilized tree. Karanja oil has been selected for biodiesel synthesis. A solid base catalyst was prepared by solid solid mixing of K2CO3 on MgO and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). Loading ratio was kept 0.6 m/m of K2CO3/MgO. Experiments were conducted to understand effect of reaction time, temperature and reactant molar ratio. Effect of different supports for K2CO3 was also investigated. Optimization of reaction parameters (reaction time, temperature, molar ratio and catalyst amount) have been done. Biodiesel yield of 91.5% was obtained at the optimum reaction conditions of temperature at 70o C, reaction time of 2 h, oil to methanol molar ratio 1:9 using 2 wt% catalyst amount. The fuel properties of biodiesel prepared from Karanja oil were determined using ASTM standards to check compliance with B100 standards.