Production of Biodiesel from Waste Sunflower Cooking Oil.

Abstract

This report investigates the production of biodiesel from sunflower oil and methanol via base- catalyzed transesterification, focusing on laboratory experimentation. Biodiesel, a renewable and

biodegradable alternative to petroleum diesel, is typically produced through the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats with alcohols in the presence of an alkaline catalyst. This process operates under mild conditions and achieves high conversion rate with minimal side reactions and short reaction times. In the case of waste cooking oil containing high percentage of free fatty acid, alkaline catalyst reacts with free fatty acid and forms soap by saponification reaction. Also, it reduces the biodiesel conversions. In order to reduce the level of fatty acid content, waste cooking oil is pre-treated with acid catalyst to undergo esterification reaction, which also requires high operating conditions. In this report, the pre-treatment step, the physical and chemical properties of waste cooking oil, Esterification, Transesterification and production of Biodiesel from waste cooking oil by various methods and catalysts reported so far and the factors affecting the process parameters reported have been summarized.