Production And Life Cycle Assessment Of Biodiesel From Three Waste Oils

ABSTRACT

Converting the huge amount of waste cooking oils presently generated globally to biodiesel as complementary energy source to fossil fuel is one of the major routes to sustainable energy management. However, producing quality biodiesel at established optimum conditions, through a clean technology with favourable environmental implications is of greater importance. This research focused on achieving the latter through alkali catalysed trans-esterification process of biodiesel production and life cycle assessment (LCA) of the biodiesel produced using SIMAPRO 7.3.3. In this research, the comparative analysis of the use of KOH and NaOH, as catalysts in the trans-esterification of Waste Groundnut Oil (WGO), Waste Soyabean Oil (WSO) and Crude Palm Kernel Oil (CPKO); as well as the life cycle assessment of the biodiesel produced from WGO, WSO and CPKO were established. The results obtained showed that, under similar conditions, biodiesel yields from the trans-esterification of oils using KOH as catalyst are higher than the yields from the NaOH catalysed process. Comparatively, the optimum conditions for biodiesel yield from KOH catalysed trans-esterification of WGO are; 10.67 methanol/oil mole ratio, 0.86 w/w Oil catalyst concentration at 600C and 71 minutes reaction time. For NaOH catalysed trans-esterification of WGO, the optimum conditions are 9.94 methanol/oil mole ratio, 0.70 w/w Oil catalyst concentration at 600C and 72 minutes reaction time. Optimum conditions for biodiesel yield from KOH catalysed trans-esterification of WSO are; 9.76 methanol/oil mole ratio, 1.04 w/w Oil catalyst concentration at 600C and 70 minutes reaction time. For NaOH catalysed trans-esterification of WSO optimum conditions are 9.00 methanol/oil mole ratio, 0.70 w/w Oil catalyst concentration at 610C and 70 minutes reaction time. The optimum conditions for biodiesel yield from KOH catalysed trans-esterification of CPKO are; 9.51 methanol/oil mole ratio, 1.24 w/w Oil catalyst concentration at 620C and 80 minutes reaction time.