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Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
Article in Materials Focus · April 2018
DOI: 10.1166/mat.2018.1493
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Materials Focus
Vol. 7, pp. 1–9, 2018
(www.aspbs.com/mat)
Copyright © 2018 by American Scientific Publishers
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
C. Karthikeyan∗ and S. Karuppuchamy∗
Department of Energy Science, Alagappa University, Karaikudi 630003, Tamil Nadu, India
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: Bioenergy, Biodiesel Production, Catalysis, Renewable Fuel, Transesterification.
CONTENTS
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. History of Biodiesel Production . . . . . . . .
3. Catalytic Biodiesel Production . . . . . . . . .
3.1. Alkali Catalyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2. Enzyme Catalyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3. Acid Catalyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. Biodiesel Production Technologies . . . . . .
4.1. Pyrolysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2. Direct or Blend Used of Vegetable Oil .
4.3. Micro-Emulsion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4. Transesterification . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5. Biodiesel Feedstock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6. Advantages of Biodiesel . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7. Disadvantages of Biodiesel . . . . . . . . . . .
8. Factors Influencing Biodiesel Production . .
8.1. Reaction Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2. Alcohol to Oil Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3. Reaction Temperature . . . . . . . . . . .
8.4. Nature and Concentration of Catalyst . .
9. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References and Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1. INTRODUCTION
The major energy requirements were essentially come
from fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and petroleum.
However these sources are non-renewable, limited availability, which owing to many environmental problems.
∗
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Emails: karthik83c@gmail.com, skchamy@gmail.com
Received: xx Xxxx xxxx
Accepted: xx Xxxx xxxx
Mater. Focus 2018, Vol. 7, No. xx
2169-429X/2018/7/001/009
Hence researchers focusing to discover alternative renewable energy resources like wind, solar, hydro, nuclear
and bioenergy. Currently, biodiesel has received significant interest as a bio-fuel, renewable, biodegradable, less
toxic and more environmentally benevolent fuel source
as compared with the fossil fuels. Biodiesel is triglycerides of long chain fatty acid methyl esters (FAME)
and it is extracted from diverse renewable feedstock like
vegetable oils,1–23 animal fats15 16 22 23 and used cocking
oils.9 Biodiesel could be used as fuel directly or blended
with petroleum. It has many advantages than conventional diesel like nontoxic, biodegradable, modest emission
of CO and SO2 .24–29 The biodiesel properties very close
with diesel fuel. It has higher cetane number, high combustion efficiency28 and better lubrication, which makes
biodiesel as a better alternate for fossil fuels.30 Biodiesel
is biodegradable, within the 21 days more than 90% of
biodiesel can be degraded.31 32
It is identified that the vegetable oil is one of the
significant renewable fuels.29 The physicochemical properties of vegetable oils are very similar to diesel fuel.
Recently, these oils are more fascinated owing to its ecofriendly, nontoxic, inexhaustible and renewable nature.
However, the vegetable oil fuels were not accessible due
they were more expensive than petroleum fuels. Though,
uncertainties in petroleum availability and rapid raise in
petroleum prices there is renewed interest in vegetable oil
fuels in favour of diesel engines. Lot of efforts have been
taken to improve vegetable oil properties like viscosity,
volatility, polyunsaturated characteristics and combustion
doi:10.1166/mat.2018.1493
1
REVIEW
This article reports biodiesel fuel production technologies, optimization and its feedstocks. Biodiesel consist of
methyl or ethyl esters of long chain fatty acids and it is produced from vegetable oils or animal fats. Biodiesel is
less toxic, renewable, biodegradable and environmentally benevolent fuel. It is free from aromatic compounds
and sulfur. The major limitations of biodiesel are high costs more than petroleum based diesel. Biodiesel
is produced by transesterification process. Transesterification is carried out by variety of homogeneous or
heterogeneous catalysts. The catalytic transesterification is most favored one because it increases high rate and
conversion. Commonly used catalysts for transesterification are Enzymes, acids and alkali types of catalysts
were generally used in biodiesel production. The important reaction parameters like reaction temperature,
reaction time, nature and amount of catalyst and methanol oil ratio were discussed. Biodiesel is directly used as
fuel for diesel engine without any engine modification. This review shows optimum biodiesel production should
be in range of alcohol to oil ratio 5:1–20:1, reaction time in the range of 2–5 hours and reaction temperature in
the range of 40–80 C.
REVIEW
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
efficiency. Several methods were presently accessible
for the vegetable oil to biodiesel conversion. Notably,
direct or blend use of raw oils,33–37 thermal cracking,38–43
micro-emulsions44 and transesterification45 (Table I).
Among these methods most commonly used technology
is transesterification of vegetable oils. Transesterification
process generally carried with alcohol in the presence of
suitable homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts. Acid
or base catalyst also currently engaged in this process.
Homogeneous catalytic reactions were faster reaction
rate, however it produce high activity. Predominantly,
homogeneous base catalyzed reactions were faster than
homogeneous acid catalyzed reactions. However it causes
for corrosion problem of equipment and difficulty in
product separation. In order to defeat the drawbacks of
homogeneous catalysts, a range of heterogeneous catalysts have been premeditated for the transesterification
of vegetable oils owing to their recyclability and ease
of operation.46 Heterogeneous catalysts can be more easily divorced from the mixture of product and it avoids
saponification reaction. Production cost also significantly
reduced by using heterogeneous solid catalyst. This
kind of catalyst shows more advantages like reusability
and suitability for both esterification and transesterification reactions. In this review, catalyst for biodiesel
production, biodiesel production technologies, biodiesel
feedstock, advantages and disadvantages biodiesel and
important biodiesel production parameters were discussed.
2. HISTORY OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION
Transesterification process was initiated by Duffy and
Patrick in the year of 1853. The diesel engines were
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
discovered in 1893 by the eminent scientist Rudolph
Diesel. He designed original diesel engine to run by vegetable oil,47 this engine able to run by several vegetable
oils. The very first transesterification of vegetable oil was
utilized in heavy-duty vehicles in South Africa. In the past
few decades biodiesel received considerable observation as
a benevolent renewable fuel. In near future, biodiesel is
anticipating as a one of the major alternative fuel resources
among the all other energy resources.
3. CATALYTIC BIODIESEL PRODUCTION
Transesterification reaction was carried out by catalytic
and non-catalytic method. The catalytic transesterification
is most preferred one since it increases high rate and conversion. Commonly, there are three types of catalysts used
for biodiesel production: enzymes, acids and alkalis.48
The particle size is one of the imperative factors for the
catalytic activity.49 The rate of the chemical reaction is
increased once the particle size is small. It is possibly
owing to diffusion forces of the catalyst particles. High
surface area and lower particle size possibly accelerate the
rate of the chemical reaction since the increased number of
molecules and minimum energy enough to run the chemical reaction.50
3.1. Alkali Catalyst
Alkali-catalyzed transesterification provide faster rate,
which is nearly 4000 times faster than same amount of
acid catalyst.51 52 These catalysts are low cost materials since the catalysis reaction carried out under atmospheric pressure and low temperature, no intermediate
C. Karthikeyan
S. Karuppuchamy
2
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
Table I. Methods of biodiesel production.
Methods
Merits
Direct (or) blend use
of oils
Thermal cracking
Micro-emulsions
Transesterification
Demerits
Simple process, easily available, renewable
Higher viscosity, lower stability
Simple process, pollution free, similar
characteristics to diesel fuel
Better combustion rate
Higher temperature required, high
manufacturing cost, low purity
Lower energy, lower cetane number
High conversion, high cetane number, high
combustion efficiency, lower emissions
By-product formation
Interlayer Anions
(OH-,NO3-,CO32-)
Hydrotalcite layer
(M2+/M3+)
Fig. 1.
Structure of layered double hydroxide (LDH).
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
Carbon, Cooking
formation
–
Incomplete
combustion
–
References
[8–12], [64]
[14–19], [64]
[13, 20]
[20–22], [64]
3.2. Enzyme Catalyst
Recently, enzyme catalysts were widely investigated for
transesterification reaction since it purification process
is easy and prevent soap formation. Commonly used
enzymes catalysts includes, Rhizopus oryzae lipase,69
Candida antarctica lipase,70 Candida sp. 99–125,70 71
Pseudomonas cepacia,72 Rhizomucor miehei and Chromobacterium viscosum73 and Pseudomonas fluorescens.72
The Chromobacterium viscosum enzyme catalyst improved
yield of esters from 62% to 71% by free tuned enzyme
preparation with a process time of 8 h at 40 C.73 Watanabe
et al.74 reported biodiesel production from vegetable oil
using of immobilized Candida antarctica lipase enzyme
catalyst. Transesterification reaction was carried out at
30 C with 4% immobilized Candida lipase catalyst. The
activity of Candida antarctica lipase was not affected in
a mixture of vegetable oil and methanol. Conversely these
catalysts are high cost and require longer reaction time.28
Compare to enzyme catalysts, base catalysts were extensively used for transesterification reaction.
3.3. Acid Catalyst
Notable acids such as H2 SO4 , HCl, Fe2 (SO4 3 , H3 PO4
and sulfonic acid also acted as catalyst for transesterification reaction. Miao et al.75 reported acid-catalyzed
transesterification for biodiesel production. In this research
work trifluoroacetic acid was used as catalyst for biodiesel
production. The methyl ester (biodiesel) yield of 98.4%
reached at 5 h reaction time. However this method required
high temperature like 120 C. Generally acid catalyst
reveals various limitations like corrosion problem, longer
reaction time, high temperature requirement and complexity in product separation.75 76 Hence, acid catalyst is undesirable for transesterification reaction. However, it is used
only to reduce the free fatty acids (FFA) contents in feedstock during the pretreatment process.
4. BIODIESEL PRODUCTION
TECHNOLOGIES
4.1. Pyrolysis
Biodiesel production through pyrolysis process is intensively investigated in past few decades.77–82 Pyrolysis is the
3
REVIEW
steps and also high biodiesel conversion. Numerous alkaline catalysts were used for the transesterification reaction, which include sodium hydroxide,53 54 potassium
hydroxide,55 56 sodium methoxide,54 57 sodium butoxide58
sodium ethoxide,59 potassium methoxide,60 61 sodium
propoxide,59 and carbonates.62 63 Vicente et al.24 reported
catalytic activity of basic catalysts (potassium methoxide, potassium hydroxide, sodium methoxide and sodium
hydroxide). This reaction was carried out at temperature
65 C, 6:1 ratio of methanol to oil and 1% of vegetable
oil. They achieved 85.9, 91.67, 99.33 and 98.46 wt%
biodiesel yield for catalyst like NaOH, KOH, CH3 ONa and
CH3 OK respectively. In recent years, hydrotalcite (HT)
materials received enormous interest in biodiesel production since it is widely used as precursors64 and catalyst.65
HT known as layered double hydroxides (LDHs), also
referred as anionic clays. The structure of LDHs presented
in Figure 1. It is natural or synthetic materials consist
of positively charged brucite-like sheets. In a HT structure divalent metal cation (M2+ ions are surrounded by
six OH− ions in an octahedral co-ordination and edges
joined to form infinite sheets. Zeng et al.66 investigated
biodiesel production from rape oil and biodiesel conversion achieved 90.5% using Mg–Al hydrotalcite as a potential catalyst. Siano et al.67 patented biodiesel production
from soybean oil feedstock using Mg–Al hydrotalcite catalyst and achieved 92% conversion. They followed reaction
conditions like, 1 h reaction time, reaction temperature
180 C, 5 wt% of catalyst concentration and 0.45 ratio
of methanol/oil. Likewise the catalytic activity of Mg–Al
hydrotalcite for biodiesel production was reported by Di
Serio et al.68 This reaction was carried out with 1 wt%
catalyst concentration and achieved 94 wt% esters yield.
Real-time problems
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
cooking oil, cottonseed oil and rubber seed oil.45 85–90
Ziejewski et al.91 reported the blend of sunflower oil (25%)
with diesel fuel (75%) in a diesel engine. They reported
the blend not appropriate for long-term application owing
to high viscosity of vegetable oil. In the main, blend
or direct use of vegetable oil is not efficient for direct
and indirect diesel engines.87 88 Gupta et al.92 reported
conversion of restaurants waste cooking oil to biodiesel.
Calcium Diglyceroxide (CaDG) was used as a heterogeneous catalyst through ultrasonic irradiation method. The
yield of biodiesel achieved was 93.50% at reaction temperature 60 C, 9:1 ratio of methanol oil and reaction time
30 minutes. Chuah et al.93 investigated biodiesel production from waste cooking oil using 1 wt.% of KOH catalyst.
It is carried out at temperature 60 C, methanol oil ratio
6:1 and reaction time of 90 minutes and they achieved
97% biodiesel.
CH3OH
+
Catalyst
Vegetable oil
Transesterification Reaction
Mixture of
Methyl
Esters
Washing
Drying
Glycerol
Biodiesel
REVIEW
Scheme 1. Schematic representation of biodiesel production from
vegetable oil using methanol and catalyst.
4.3. Micro-Emulsion
Micro-emulsion is a clear, isotropic colloidal fluid and
thermodynamically stable mixture. The dimensions of
micro-emulsion commonly into 1–150 nm range. It is
formed spontaneously from two immiscible liquids. In this
process viscosity of vegetable oil was reduced with short
chain alcohols such as butanol, hexanol, methanol and
ethanol.94 95 Emulsification technique is also being useful
to reduce NOx emission and to endorse the combustion
efficiency of fossil fuels. Masjuki et al.96 studied the performance of palm oil methyl ester emulsions with 5 and
10% of water by volume. The result of the research indicates that emulsification was efficient to reduce emissions
of CO, HC, NOx, and also it improve the anti-wear characteristics of engine components.97
thermal cracking of organic matters; it is carried with catalyst in the absence of oxygen environment. This cracking
process was carried in vegetable oils, animal fats, natural
fatty acids or methyl esters of fatty acids. Pyrolysis process
convert up to 70 mass% of the biomass into a crude biooil. The resultant oil from pyrolysis is a dark liquid and
composition of elemental is identical to biomass. These
oils consist of 75 to 90 mass% organic compounds and
10 to 25 mass% of water.83 84 Conversely, carbon residues,
pour points and ash contents were undesirable.
4.2. Direct or Blend Used of Vegetable Oil
Inorder to improve the performance of the engine, vegetable oils are diluted with diesel to reduce the viscosity
and it is also known as chemical free method.85 86 Several vegetable oils were used as a blend like soybean oil,
palm oil, coconut oil, rice bran oil, sunflower oil, waste
4.4. Transesterification
Transesterification is preeminent method among other
techniques owing to its simplicity, efficiency and low cost
CH2-O-CO-R1
CH2-OH
CH3-O-CO-R1
Catalyst
CH-O-CO-R2
+
3 CH3OH
CH2-O-CO-R3
Triglyceride
CH3-O-CO-R2
+
CH2-OH
CH3-O-CO-R3
Methanol
CH-OH
Biodiesel
(Mixture of Fatty Esters)
Glycerol
(a)
R1 - COOH
Free fatty acid
+ NaOH
R1 - COONa
+ H2O
[28]
Soap
(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Transesterification reaction of vegetable oil with catalyst. (b) Saponification reaction of FFA and NaOH.
4
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
5. BIODIESEL FEEDSTOCK
Widely used biodiesel feedstock is vegetable oils, animal fat, algae oils and it essentially consist of 85–98%
wt triglycerides.105 Nowadays, edible and non-edible vegetable oils are most common feedstock for biodiesel production. Conversely, edible feedstock are inappropriate for
biodiesel industry since it is high cost, essential for food
production and limited availability. Generally, an excellent biodiesel feedstock should be easily available with
Table II. Major biodiesel feedstock of various countries.
Country
Source of feedstock
India
China
Ghana
Australia
Indonesia
Malaysia
Germany
Brazil
France
USA
Italy
Spain
Jatropha curcas
Guang pi
Palm oil and coconut oil
Animal fat, beef tallow and rapeseed oil
Palm oil
Palm oil
Rapeseed oil
Soya bean
Sunflower oil
Soya bean
Sunflower oil
Linseed and olive oil
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
low cost, environmental friendly and it is without impacting the food availability. Hence the major resources for
biodiesel production can be non-edible plant oils like
Azadirachta indica, Thevettia peruviana, Ricinus communis, Cerbera odollam, Hevea brasiliensis, Calophyllum
inophyllum, Madhuca indica, Jatropha curcas, S. chinensis and Pongamia pinnata, etc.106 The major biodiesel
feedstock of various countries was presented in Table II.
We previously reported vegetable oils like Madhuca longifolia, Azadirachta indica and Linseed oil as a potential
feedstock for biodiesel production and achieved 81%, 84%
and 86% of biodiesel yield respectively.29 107 108
6. ADVANTAGES OF BIODIESEL
• Biodiesel is a renewable energy source.
• It has higher combustible nature due to high combustion
rate and higher flame temperature.
• It contains less sulphur content since it emits less toxic
gases.
• Biodiesel is relatively safe to transport and storage
owing to high flash point.
• Less polluting than fossil fuel.
• It decomposes easily under natural environment.
• Free form sulphur, hence it increases the life span of
the catalytic converters.
7. DISADVANTAGES OF BIODIESEL
• More expensive than diesel fuel.
• Biodiesel contains mixture of saturated and unsaturated
fatty acids. If biodiesel contains more amounts of unsaturated compounds hence it easily oxidise than petroleum
fuel.
• Higher viscosity than diesel fuel.
• Problem in fuel injection due to bigger drops
formation.
8. FACTORS INFLUENCING BIODIESEL
PRODUCTION
The biodiesel yield in transesterification reaction depends
on various parameters like reaction time, ratio of alcohol
to oil, reaction temperature and nature of catalyst.
8.1. Reaction Time
The rate of transesterification reaction is directly influenced by reaction time. Transesterification reaction is slow
at the beginning time owing to penetration, mixing process of alcohol and oil. Biodiesel yield progressively
increases with reaction time. Transesterification of madhuca longifolia seed oil with Mg–Al hydrotalcite shows
maximum biodiesel yield of 81% at 4 hours reaction
time.29 Figure 3 shows the effect of reaction time on conversion of biodiesel from madhuca longifolia seed oil with
Mg–Al hydrotalcite catalyst.29 Samples a and b, shows
5
REVIEW
nature.29 85 88 98–100 The detailed process of transesterification reaction was shown in Scheme 1. In this chemical process alkoxy group of an ester compounds are exchanged
by another alcohol. Generally, transesterification reactions
are carried out in the presence of homogeneous or heterogeneous catalyst and acid or base catalysts. Transesterification also processed through catalyst free methods; however
this method requires supercritical alcohol conditions.101
Heterogeneous catalysts were widely chosen over homogeneous catalyst sine it is easy separation of final product from mixture and prevent soap formation.102 103 The
chemistry of transesterification reaction was shown in
Figure 2(a). In this equation, R1 , R2 , R3 are long-chain
hydrocarbons of fatty acids. Generally, there are five major
types of chains in plant oils and animal oils, like palmitic,
stearic, oleic, linolenic and linoleic acid. In each step one
mole of fatty acid is liberated.45 Vegetable oils usually contain diminutive amount of water and free fatty acid (FFA).
In a base catalyzed transesterification reaction, the catalyst
will react with FFA and it produces soap. It is known as
saponification reaction. For instance, saponification reaction of FFA and NaOH (catalyst) produce water28 and
soap. The corresponding equation is shown in Figure 2(b).
The physicochemical properties of biodiesel extensively
altered during the transesterification reactions. Recently,
Amani et al.104 reported cesium impregnated silica as a
potential heterogeneous catalyst for the transesterification
reaction of palm oil and waste oil. Maximum biodiesel
yield of 90% achieved at 25% cesium on silica, reaction
time 3 hours and reaction temperature 65 C.
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
reveals maximum biodiesel yield at 10:1 ratio of methanol
oil.29 Further increasing the methanol oil ratio, the added
methanol does not increase the biodiesel yield. Typically,
excess amount of alcohol inhibits the reaction between
the oil and catalyst. It also increase polarity consequently increases the glycerol solubility. Hence the separation of alkyl ester from glycerol is more problematic.112
Verma et al.113 investigated various alcohols like butanol,
propanol and pentanol for biodiesel production. Essential
reaction parameters such as molar ratio, temperature, time
and catalyst were optimised with the help of Response
Surface Methodology (RSM). The utmost biodiesel yield
of 76.4%, 56.86% and 73.13% were obtained for butanol,
propanol and pentanol respectively.
REVIEW
Fig. 3. Effect of reaction time on biodiesel yield.
maximum biodiesel conversion at 4 hours reaction time.
After 4 hours reaction time the yield of biodiesel decreases
possibly owing to formation of emulsion and reverse reaction. At short reaction time the transesterification reaction
was inadequate.
8.2. Alcohol to Oil Ratio
The ratio of methanol to oil is the most significant parameters for biodiesel yield. The effect of methanol oil ratio
on biodiesel yield was shown in Figure 4.29 The stoichiometric ratio involved in this process was 3 moles of
alcohol and 1 mole of triglyceride and it yield 1 mole
of glycerol, 3 moles of biodiesel.109 However, transesterification is an equilibrium reaction in which excess
amount of alcohol is needed to drive the reaction in the
forward direction.110 111 Primarily the biodiesel yield was
an increasing with methanol oil ratio. Samples a and b
Fig. 4. Effect of alcohol to oil ratio on biodiesel yield.
6
8.3. Reaction Temperature
At lower temperature transesterification reaction proceed
slowly subsequently low biodiesel yield. It is possibly
due to inadequate energy hence minimum amount of
molecules only able to reach the energy barrier. The effect
of reaction temperature on biodiesel yield was shown
in Figure 5.29 Both samples a and b shows maximum
biodiesel yield at 65 C and it is close to the boiling point
of anhydrous methanol.114 It clearly indicates the influence of reaction temperature on biodiesel yield. Beyond
the 65 C, biodiesel yield was decreased. At higher temperature methanol oil ratio decreased since most of the
methanol vapourise into gases phase.
8.4. Nature and Concentration of Catalyst
Biodiesel yield is also influenced by the nature and amount
of catalyst. Most commonly used catalyst for biodiesel
production is NaOH, KOH and Metal oxides. Commonly
used metal oxides for biodiesel production includes CaO,
MgO, Al2 O3 , ZnO, CuO, TiO2 , KNO3 loaded Al2 O3 , zeolite, SrO, BaO and hydrotalcites.115 116 Ogunkunle et al.116
Fig. 5. Effect of reaction temperature on conversion of biodiesel.
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
Karthikeyan and Karuppuchamy
9. CONCLUSION
Biodiesel is renewable, clean and benevolent fuel. It is an
alternative fuel for petroleum, since it exhibits numerous
advantages than fossil fuels. It is a potential renewable
energy source for various energy applications. Biodiesel
is less toxic, pollution free and environmental benign fuel
and it is produced from several renewable feedstocks.
Biodiesel is produced through pyrolysis, blend, microemulsion and transesterification process, among the production process transesterification is more preferred one.
Transesterification process is involved with reactant alcohol and it is carried out in the presence of suitable catalysts like acid, alkali and enzyme. Commonly used alcohol
is methanol and various metal oxides are used as a catalyst. The biodiesel production cost mainly depends on
cost of feedstock. In order to reduce the production cost
non-edible vegetable oils are preferred than edible oil. The
yield of biodiesel was influenced by reaction time, reaction temperature, nature of catalyst, amount of catalyst and
methanol oil ratio.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Mater. Focus, 7, 1–9, 2018
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REVIEW
investigated biodiesel production using KOH catalyst.
Maximum biodiesel yield of 94.33% was achieved while
reaction temperature 65 C, alcohol oil ratio 9:1 and reaction time 2 hours. Guan et al.117 reported multi-walled carbon nanotubes for biodiesel production. Overall biodiesel
conversion of 97.8% is achieved at 1 h, 150 C with
3.7 wt% of catalyst. Homogenous acid catalyst shows
much limitation for transesterification reaction. Hence heterogeneous base catalyst reveals unique properties and
higher yield. Predominantly metal oxides catalysts expose
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reported biodiesel production from cottonseed oil using
alkali and multi walled carbon nano tubes as catalyst. The
important factors like ratio of alcohol to oil, temperature,
amount of catalyst and reaction time on yield of biodiesel
were investigated. The maximum biodiesel yield of 95%
was achieved. The concentration of catalyst plays a pivotal role in properties of biodiesel. While NaOH is used
as catalyst the amount must be optimised because excess
amount of NaOH will result for gel formation.119 The high
concentration of catalyst result in reduced the biodiesel
conversion owing to secondary reactions. Gaurav Dwivedi
et al.120 reported the effect of catalyst concentration on
biodiesel yield. The utmost biodiesel yield of 98.4% was
achieved at 1.43% w/w of KOH catalyst, reaction temperature 56.6 C and methanol/oil ratio (11.06:1). The large
amount of catalyst is inappropriate for biodiesel conversion since it form emulsions as a result higher viscosity.
Hence the biodiesel recover is complicated.120 121
Technologies for Biodiesel Production: A Review
REVIEW
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