Harnessing Biomass Energy for the Production of Biodiesel

Abstract—The transesterification reaction is actually The demand for petroleum is increasing with each passing day. This may be attributed to the limited resources of petroleum crude. In that case it becomes utmost necessity to search for alternative fuels which are renewable and in that biodiesel emerges as a real solution. Biodiesel is a cleaner burning fuel than diesel and a suitable replacement. It is made from non-toxic, biodegradable, renewable resources. Biodiesel can be produced in many ways. The method used in the laboratory was transesterification which is actually replacement of alcohol group from an ester by another alcohol. The reaction was carried out by varying different parameters to find the best conversion of oil to biodiesel. Alkali catalysed transesterification is considered to be the best amongst all methods available for the production of biodiesel from fresh oil. It was found out that the rate of transesterification reaction in a batch reactor increases with temperature. Higher temperatures do not reduce the time to reach maximal conversion. The conversion of triglyceride, diglyceride and monoglyceride appears to be second order upto 10 minutes of reaction time. Our aim is to establish the kinetics of the reaction during transesterification and to do the modeling and predict rate equation for the reaction.