PRODUCTION OF BIODIESEL FROM WASTE VEGETABLE OIL SOURCES
In an increasingly green global economy, the drive to convert waste into usable form has become imperative. Coupled with increasing living costs, it is now high time to adopt alternative methods that will seek to sustainably seek to replace other costly methods currently operating. The concern is increasing worldwide for environmental protection and for the conservation of non-renewable natural resources. Biodiesel is a versatile biofuel that is renewable, biodegradable, and environmentally beneficial in the sense that combustion adds only biogenic carbon to the atmosphere. It is developed through Trans-esterification. Defined as a process that converts triglycerides, like vegetable oil, into fatty acid methyl esters, commonly known as biodiesel. This paper will focus on the development of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil sources as an avenue to reduce the carbon footprint and costs associated with fossil fuels. A literature review was conducted through a structured search of peer-reviewed journals dealing with the phenomenon. According to the Article by Savariraj et al, 2013, biodiesel has become one of the most versatile alternative fuel options for diesel engine applications. In their research, the authors carried out research on the viability of biodiesel production from fish oil, a common commercial restaurant waste in India. Given the large number of fast food restaurants in the Kenyan capitals such as Nairobi , Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru,Thika and others, it is plausible that such a venture is plausible in the country. Instead of using virgin vegetable oil, waste cooking oil can be used as raw material for biodiesel production (Guo, et al., 2012). In most of hotels, restaurants, and in other food industries, the waste cooking oil is either simply discharged into the river or dumped into the land. In spite of this, the waste cooking oil can be used effectively for the biodiesel synthesis. Furthermore, this is fostered by the fact that researchers have found out that biodiesel production is indeed possible form a variety of oil feed stocks (Guo, et al., 2012;Refaat, Attia, Sibak, Sheltawy, & G. I. ElDiwani, 2008;Savariraj, Ganapathy, & Saravanan, 2013;Uddin, Ferdous, Uddin, Khan, & Islam, 2014;Vicente, Martınez, & Araci, 2004). Refaat et al, 2008, and Uddin, 2014, highlight that the Application of biodiesel, as a fuel in transportation vehicles, has nowadays become common in almost all oil importing nations, due to the high oil import bills and uncertainties associated with the imports due to political chaos. Depending upon the availability of domestic products of feed stock material these countries started using biodiesel from domestically available or producible vegetable oil. In this context, many raw materials have been used by different countries, depending upon the availability and economical affordability (Refaat, Attia, Sibak, Sheltawy, & G. I. ElDiwani, 2008). Guo et al., 2012, perform a research of the efficiency of waste cooking oil in Off-road Diesel engines. Their research indeed agrees with that of Savariraj et al, 2013, stating that a plethora of animal and vegetable fats are indeed suitable for oil production. Some of the feedstock quoted include, soybean, rapeseed , sunflower , palm, coconut oil , rubber seed, waste cooking- oil, waste plastic oil among others. Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) show great potential as diesel substitutes, and they are known to be sources of biodiesel. However, the authors note that production is not limited to the above materials. Jatropha, Karanja, Mahua and Polanga trees have also been suitable and feasible feedstock for production of biodiesel (Savariraj, Ganapathy, & Saravanan, 2013). As stated earlier, many scientists have focused towards biodiesel production from algae biodiesel, waste cooking-oil biodiesel, fish-oil biodiesel sources. Gnanaprakasam et al., 2013, in their...
References: Guo, J., Peltier, E., Carter, R. E., Krejci, A. J., Stagg-Williams, S. M., & Depcik, C. (2012). Waste Cooking Oil Biodiesel Use in Two Off-Road Diesel Engines. ISRN Renewable Energy, 2012(2012). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5402/2012/130782
Refaat, A. A., Attia, N. K., Sibak, H. A., Sheltawy, S. T., & G. I. ElDiwani. (2008). Production optimization and quality assessment of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 5(1), 75-82.
Savariraj, *., Ganapathy, T., & Saravanan, C. G. (2013). Performance, emission and combustion characteristics of fish-oil biodiesel engine. Euro. J. Appl. Eng. Sci. Res., 2(3), 26-32.
Uddin, M. R., Ferdous, K., Uddin, M. R., Khan, M. R., & Islam, M. A. (2014). Synthesis of Biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oil. Science and Education, 1(2).
Vicente, G., Martınez, M., & Araci, J. (2004). Integrated biodiesel production: a comparison of different homogeneous catalysts systems. Bioresource Technology, 92, 297–305.
Please join StudyMode to read the full document