Two step pre etherification and Transesterification for biodiesel production from crude Jatropha curcas oil with high content of free fatty acid -India as supplying country

Studies were carried out to produce biodiesel from crude Jatropha Curcas oil(CJCO) having high free fatty acids(6.85%).Due its high free fatty acid content, the crude Jatropha Curcas oil was processed in two steps. During the first step the free fatty acid content of CJCO was reduced to 1.12% in one hour at 60oC using 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio and 1%w/w of oil of H2SO4.After the reaction ,the mixture was allowed to settle for two hours and the methanol-water mixture at the top layer was removed. The second step was alkali catalyzed transesterification using methanol to oil molar ratio of 5.41:1 and the catalyst to oil ratio of 0.55% w/w to produce biodiesel from the product of the first step at 600C. The maximum yield of biodiesel was 95.3%v/v of CJCO which was more than the biodiesel yield (80.5%) by one step alkali catalyzed transesterification process