• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.538-544
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• 2022

One of the most exciting areas for the development of alternative fuels is the production of biodiesel. To reduce the cost of biodiesel production, in situ trans-esterification has been introduced to simplify the production process by enabling extraction and trans-esterification to occur at a single stage in the presence of a catalyst. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using non-corrosive and environmentally receptive flying jet plasma as an alternative catalytic route for in situ tran-sesterification of castor bean seeds (CBS). Upon optimizing the reaction conditions, it is elucidated that applying a low ratio of methanol to seeds (≤6:1) has resulted in hindering the in situ trans-esterification and leading to insignificant conversion. The yield of esters has increased from 80.5% to 91.7% as the molar ratio rose from 9:1 to 12:1. Excess alcohol beyond the ratio of 15:1 was shown to have a negative impact on the yield of the produced esters, attributed to an increase in the biodiesel portion prone to dissolving in the co-product (glycerol). An increase in the reaction bulk temperature from 40 to 55 ℃ led to a higher ester content by 50%. Further increases in the bulk temperature beyond 55 ℃ did not affect yields. Regarding the reaction period, the results have shown that 3 h of reaction is adequate for a higher biodiesel yield. The quality of the biodiesel obtained has demonstrated that all physicochemical properties meet the ASTM D6751 specifications.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.541-543
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• 2006

The feasibility of biodiesel production from soapstock by acid catalyst was tested. The water content of soapstock was more than 40%. Before the esterification of soapstock, the pre-treatment of soapstock was conducted adding potassium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. The pre-treated soapstock contained 99.6wt% of free fatty acid. When the free fatty acid was esterified with methanol, the fatty acid methyl ester content became 91.7wt% under the solid acid catalyst, Amberlyst-15. When this biodiesel was distilled the methyl ester content was 98.1wt% which satisfied the biodiesel Standard. Amberlyst-15 could be recovered easily because it was the soliid catalyst. When sulfuric acid was used as the acid catalyst, the fatty acid methyl ester content was 91.0wt%. From the results, it was possible to produce biodiesel efficiently from soapstock after pre-treatment. Because soapstock is very cheap, it will become good feedstock for biodiesel product ion.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.941-953
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• 2019

Biodiesels are being explored as a clean energy alternative to regular diesel, which causes pollution. In this study, the optimum conditions for producing biodiesel (BD) by combining beef tallow, an animal waste resource with a high saturated fatty acid content, and corn oil, a vegetable oil with a high unsaturated fatty acid content, were investigated, and the fuel properties were analyzed. Furthermore, Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to verify the optimum conditions for producing biodiesel. The influences of control factors, such as the oil blend ratio and methanol to oil molar ratio, on the fatty acid methyl ester and biodiesel production yield were investigated. As a result, the optimum condition for producing blended biodiesel was verified to be tallow to corn oil blend ratio of 7 : 3 (TACO7) and a methanol to oil molar ratio of 14 : 1. Moreover, the interaction between the oil blend ratio and the methanol to oil molar ratio has the most crucial effects on the production of oil blended biodiesel. In conclusion, the analysis results of the fuel properties of TACO7 BD satisfied the BD quality standard, and thus, the viability of BD blended with waste tallow as fuel was verified.

• ALGAE
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.67-79
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• 2015

Planktivorous fish which limit zooplankton grazing have been predicted to increase algal biodiesel production in wastewater fed open reactors. In addition, tanks with higher algal diversity have been predicted to be more stable, more productive, and to more fully remove nutrients from wastewater. To test these predictions, we conducted a 14-week experiment in Houston, TX using twelve 2,270-L open tanks continuously supplied with wastewater. Tanks received algal composition (monocultures or diverse assemblage) and trophic (fish or no fish) treatments in a full-factorial design. Monocultures produced more algal and fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) mass than diverse tanks. More than 80% of lipids were converted to FAME indicating potentially high production for conversion to biodiesel (up to $0.9T\;ha^{-1}y^{-1}$). Prolific algal growth lowered temperature and levels of total dissolved solids in the tanks and increased pH and dissolved oxygen compared to supply water. Algae in the tanks removed 91% of nitrate-N and 53% of phosphorus from wastewater. Monocultures were not invaded by other algal species. Fish did not affect any variables. Our results indicated that algae can be grown in open tank bioreactors using wastewater as a nutrient source. The stable productivity of monocultures suggests that this may be a viable production method to procure algal biomass for biodiesel production.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.7-13
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• 2018

The potential of zinc fluorides with different molar ratios of Zn/F was applied as a solid catalyst in the simultaneous reaction of transesterification and esterification of crude palm oil (CPO) for biodiesel production. These materials were prepared by the fluorolytic sol-gel technique with different fluorine contents. The resulting samples were investigated using elemental analysis, XRD, FT-IR, TG/DTG, $N_2$ physisorption measurements and SEM. The results exhibited that the presence of fluorine strongly affected the catalytic activity in the biodiesel production. The catalysts with smaller fluorine contents (${\leq}1$) showed the best performance in all of the observed samples, yields from 92.94 to 89.95, 87.38 and 85.21% with increasing fluorine contents, respectively. The yield toward the formation of biodiesel depended on the phase and particle sizes of catalysts, but it was not influenced by surface area, pore size, and volume of the samples. The recovered catalyst showed a gradual decrease in activity over three cycles of same reactions.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2015

Microwave assisted biodiesel production from crude Pongamia pinnata oil using homogeneous base catalyst (KOH) was unsuccessful because of considerable soap formation. Therefore, a two step process of biodiesel production from high free fatty acid (FFA) oil was investigated. In first step, crude P. pinnata oil was acid catalyzed using $H_2SO_4$ and acid value of oil was reduced to less than 4 mg KOH/g. Effect of sulfuric acid concentration, alcohol-oil molar ratio and microwave irradiation time on acid value of oil was studied. Result suggested that 1.5% $H_2SO_4$ (w/w), 6:1 methanol oil molar ratio and 3 min microwave irradiation time was sufficient to reduce the acid value of oil from 12 and 22 mg KOH/g to 2.9 and 3.9 mg/KOH/g, respectively. Oil obtained after pretreatment was subsequently used for microwave assisted alkali catalyzed transesterification. A higher biodiesel yield (99.0%) was achieved by adopting two step processes. Microwave energy efficiency during alkali catalyzed transesterification was also investigated. The results suggested a significant energy saving because of reduced reaction time under microwave heating.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.132-135
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• 2009

Development of biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel for commercial uses is a recent phenomenon. However, the growth of ethanol and biodiesel has been impressive during the period 2000-2007yr. Globally, production of biodiesel stands around 8.3 billion liters. Europe leads the world in biodiesel production with 80% share of the global biodiesel production total. Today biodiesel fuels have been in commercial use in many countries and recently the world-wide biodiesel market has experienced considerable growth, which is partly due to various tax concession programs and other financial incentives. In Korea, biodiesel has already been used for transportation fuel, but not used for power generation fuel yet. Korean government has a strategy for renewable energy propagation, especially the goal of power generation amount by renewable energy is 3% of total power production by 2012. This paper focuses on the estimation study for effect of using biodiesel as power generation fuel. The study also has the plan to replace the fuel of thermal power plant, gas turbine and distributed power generation system. As the increase of biodiesel fuel, I look forward to environment-friendly power generation and the strategy of Renewable Portfolio Standards(RPS).

• KSBB Journal
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.335-339
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• 2008

Biodiesel is an alternative and renewable energy source, which is hoped to reduce global dependence on petroleum and environmental problem. Biodiesel produced from a variety of oil sources such as vegetable oil, animal fat and waste oils, and has properties similar to those associated with petro-diesel, including cetane number, volumetric heating value, flash point, viscosity and so on. In this study, we investigate the effect of quality of raw materials on alkali-catalyzed transesterification for producing of biodiesel. The increase of content of free fatty acid and water in oil were caused the sharp decrease of conversion yield. Also, the low purity of methanol in reactant was inhibited the reaction rate. In the case of addition of sodium sulfate as absorbent to prepare catalyst solution, the content of fatty acid methyl ester in product was increased more about 1.6% than that of control. However, the addition of zeolite, sodium chloride and sodium sulfate as absorbent in reactant to remove water generated from reaction did not show any enhancement in the reaction yield. This result may provide useful information with regard to the choice and preparation of raw materials for more economic and efficient biodiesel production.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.109-115
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• 2010

The demand of biodiesel that is a renewable, alternative fuel for fossil-based petrodiesel seems to keep increasing. Exploiting lipids of microalgae as a raw material for biodiesel is already technically feasible. To realize economical production of microalgal biodiesel, several factors or strategies should be addressed and improved. Especially, researches on improvement of lipid synthesis by genetic or metabolic engineering are now in early stage, and prospects of this field are bright, requiring concerns and interests of many researchers to put practical use of microalgal biodiesel forward.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.396-402
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• 2002

Biodiesel has attracted considerable attention during the past decade as a biodegradable, nontoxic, and renewable fuel, Several processes for the production of biodiesel have been developed, among which transesterification under alkali-catalysis gives high level yield of methyl esters in short reaction times. In this research, response surface method was applied to optimize the transesterification reaction under alkali-catalysis. It was found that reaction temperature, reaction time, and agitation rate of reactor had profound effects among the seven variables affecting on biodiesel conversion. The optimal temperature, reaction time, and agitation speed were 67$^{\circ}C$, 68 minutes, and 94 rpm, respectively. Under the optimal conditions, the experimental value of biodiesel conversion was 99.7%.