Extraction of crude castor oil from castor oil seeds.

Abstract

The third industrial revolution has begun on transitioning to renewable energy resources. Due to rapid increase in industrialization and number of vehicles for road transport, the energy requirements have increased. The environment is affected by pollution due to massive consumption of fossil fuels. Hence, biofuels being an alternative. Fossil fuels are non-renewable fuels such as crude oil since they get to depletion and biofuel are renewable fuels like biodiesel from vegetable oils and animal fats. But much effort is put on vegetable oils, thus being able to discover Hence being able to discover the Ricinoleic Acid (RA) in castor oil. This RA performs a variety of chemical reactions hence allowing conversion of castor oil to biodiesel through transesterification process. This report describes biodiesel production from vegetable oil by transesterification and subsequent analysis of produced biodiesel main characteristics such as viscosity, density, acidity, Sulphur content, flash point, cloud point and pour point. The biodiesel ifs blended with small content of diesel in-order to reduce its viscosity and give it a light flow on pouring.