Vegetable Oil as Biofuel. Chemical Characteristics and Transesterification Procedure

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2012 in the subject Engineering - Chemical Engineering, grade: 5.00, Covenant University, language: English, abstract: This essay tries to examines how and under which circumstances vegetabel oil can be transformed to and used as biofuel.

Reacting oils or fats in an esterification process basically contain monoglycerides, diglycerides, triglycerides, lipids and free fatty acids. Triglyceride (TAGs) nevertheless has a good prospect as an alternative fuel. Triglyceride has a benefit as been renewable and biodegradable with higher cetane number. Biodiesel is the product from a variety of reacting feedstocks. Feedstocks used will vary from vegetable oils (soybean, cottonseed, palm, peanut, rapeseed/canola, sunflower), animal fats (tallow, chicken fat, fish oils) to waste cooking oil and grease. A transesterification reaction involving oil or fat with alcohol will lead to biodiesel which is a mixture of fatty esters. Each ester component contributes to the properties of the fuel. Esters containing higher alcohol content with fatty acids can also be used as biolubricants. This fuel is biodegradable, non-toxic and has low emission profiles than petroleum diesel. Biodiesel can mix with petro-diesel in all distinction and can be used as such with petroleum diesel for direct appliance in diesel engines. Thus, it is very essential and critical to have the data of fatty acid profile of oil and fat used. This should also include their chemical properties.

It is concluded that seeds can be grown for biodiesel production purposes, because theyprovided the highest yields among the varieties tested.