Thesis Abstract

                    ABSTRACT 

The increasing awareness of the depletion of fossil fuel resources and the environmental benefits of biodiesel fuel has made it more attractive in recent times. Its primary advantages deal with it being one of the most renewable fuels currently available and it is also non-toxic and biodegradable. It can also be used directly in most diesel engines without requiring extensive engine modifications. However, the cost of biodiesel is the major hurdle to its commercialization in comparison to petroleum-based diesel fuel. The high cost is primarily due to the raw material, mostly neat vegetable oil. Used cooking oil is one of the economical sources for biodiesel production. However, the products formed during frying, can affect the transesterification reaction and the biodiesel properties.

The production of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil offers a triple-facet solution economic, environmental and waste management. The new process technologies developed during the last years made it possible to produce biodiesel from recycled frying oils comparable in quality to that of virgin vegetable oil biodiesel with an added attractive advantage of being lower in price. Thus, biodiesel produced from recycled frying oils has the same possibilities to be utilized. From an economic point of view; the production of biodiesel is very feedstock sensitive. Many previous reports estimated the cost of biodiesel production based on assumptions, made by their authors, regarding production volume, feedstock and chemical technology. From a waste management standpoint, producing biodiesel from used frying oil is environmentally beneficial, since it provides a cleaner way for disposing these products; meanwhile, it can yield valuable cuts in CO2 as well as significant tail-pipe pollution gains. Any fatty acid source may be used to prepare biodiesel. Thus, any animal or plant lipid should be a ready substrate for the production of biodiesel. The use of edible vegetable oils and animal fats for biodiesel production has recently been of great concern because they compete with food materials - the food versus fuel dispute (Pimentel et al., 2009; Srinivasan, 2009). There are concerns that biodiesel feedstock may compete with food supply in the long-term. Hence, the recent focus is the use of non-edible plant oil source and waste products of edible oil industry as the feedstock for biodiesel production meeting the international standards. Quality standards are prerequisites for the commercial use of any fuel product.

Thesis Overview