TITLE:
Biodiesel from Plant Resources—Sustainable Solution to Ever Increasing Fuel Oil Demands
AUTHORS:
Md Enamul Hoque, Lu Pui Gee
KEYWORDS:
Sustainable Solution; Fuel Oil; Biodiesel; Plant Resource; Biotechnology; Process Parameter
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Sustainable Bioenergy Systems,
Vol.3 No.3,
July
26,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The demand for fuel oil is
ever increasing with the advance of the modern world, whereas worldwide
reserves of fossil oils are diminishing at an alarming rate. However, there exist
large stockpiles of vegetable oil feedstocks that could be exploited to produce
fuel oil, called biodiesel with the aid of biotechnology. Initially, the
biodiesel produced from vegetable oil did not attract much attention because of
its high cost. However, the recent increase in petroleum prices and the uncertainties of
petroleum availability led to the renewal of interest in biodiesel production
from such sustainable resources (i.e., vegetable oil
feedstocks). This research focuses on the production of biodiesel from plant
resources, and further investigates the influences of key process parameters,
such as the molar ratio of
methanol to oil, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, reaction period
and stirring speed on the biodiesel yield. This investigation is to determine
the optimum process parameters for maximum biodiesel yield. The biodiesel was
produced from three vegetable oil feedstocks, namely palm, soybean and sunflower oil via a transesterification
process. It was observed that all the process parameters significantly
influenced the biodiesel yield. The maximum biodiesel yields for palm,
sunflower and soybean oil feedstocks were found to be 87.5%, 83.6% and 80.2%,
respectively at optimum condition. The results suggest that through proper
optimization of the process parameters the biodiesel yields could be maximized.
In conclusion, the production of biodiesel from plant resources would be
regarded as a sustainable
solution to the ever increasing demand of fuel oils.