Production of biodiesel from sludge palm oil by esterification process

Sludge palm oil (SPO) is an attractive feedstock and a significant raw material for biodiesel production. The use of SPO can lower the cost of biodiesel production significantly. In this study biodiesel fuel was produced from SPO by esterification process using P-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA) as acid catalyst in different dosages in presence of methanol to convert free fatty acid (FFA) to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Batch esterification process of SPO was carried out to study the influence of PTSA dosage (0.25-10% wt/wt),molar ratio of methanol to SPO (6:1-20:1), temperature (40-80 oC), reaction time (30-120 min). The effects of those parameters on the yield of crude biodiesel and conversion of FFA to FAME were monitored. The optimum condition for batch esterification process was 0.75% wt/wt, 10:1 molar ratio, 60 oC temperature and 60 minutes reaction time

Comparative study of the chemical kinetics of two catalysts used for esterification of sludge palm oil

Chemical kinetics study was carried out for batch esterification process. Reactant concentration (FFA) as function of time was plotted according to first and second order equations in order to study the catalytic activities of both toluene-4-sulfonic monohydrate acid (PTSA) and sulfuric acid. Pretreatment of Sludge Palm Oil (SPO) by esterification reaction was found to be a second order reaction. Sulfuric acid showed higher catalytic activity than PTSA. The rate constant K of using PTSA was 0.9 * 10-3 min-1 while K of using sulfuric acid was 2* 10-3 min-1

Production of biodiesel from sludge palm oil by esterification using P-toluenesulfonic acid

Sludge palm oil (SPO) is an attractive feedstock and a significant raw material for biodiesel production. The use of SPO as feedstock for biodiesel production requires additional pretreatment step to transesterification process, which is an esterification process. The most commonly preferred catalysts used in this process are sulfuric, sulphonic, hydrochloric and P-toluenesulfonic acid (PTSA). In this study biodiesel fuel was produced from SPO using PTSA as acid catalyst in different dosages in presence of alcohol to convert free fatty acid (FFA) to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Batch esterification process of SPO was carried out to study the influence of PTSA dosage (0.25-10% wt/wt), molar ratio of methanol to SPO (6:1-20:1), temperature (40-80oC), reaction time (30-120 min). The effects of those parameters on FFA content, yield of treated SPO and conversion of FFA to FAME were monitored. The study showed that the FFA content of SPO reduced from 22% to less than 0.15% using ratio of 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, and 2% wt/wt PTSA to SPO. After esterification process dosage of PTSA at 0.75% wt/wt shows the highest conversion of FFA to FAME as well as yield of treated SPO. The optimum condition for batch esterification process was 10:1 molar ratio, temperature 60oC and 60 minutes reaction time. The highest yield of biodiesel after aftertransesterification process was 76.62% with 0.06% FFA and 93% ester content

Removal of reduction of free fatty acid in sludge palm oil via acid catalyzed reaction for biodiesel production

In this study sulphuric acid has been used in pre-treatment of sludge palm oil for biodiesel production by esterification process. The purpose of pre-treatment process was reducing the free fatty acids (FFA) content in the sludge palm oil (SPO) to a minimum level for biodiesel production. Esterification process of SPO was carried out to evaluate suphric acid as acid catalyst in dosage range (0.25-2.75% wt/wt), molar ratio of methanol to SPO (6:1-14:1), temperature (40-80o C), reaction time (30-120 min) and stirrer speed (200-800 rpm). The results showed that the FFA of SPO reduced from 23% to less than 2% FFA using 0.25% wt/wt of sulphuric acid, the molar ratio of methanol to oil was 8:1 at 60 minutes reaction time and 60 oC

Pretreatment of Sludge Palm Oil (SPO) for biodiesel production by esterification

Biodiesel is receiving an increased attention because of increases in crude oil prices, limited resources of fossil oil and environmental concerns. There has been renewed focus on using vegetable oils and animal fats to make biodiesel fuels. The main challenges in biodiesel industry are its production cost and limited availability of fats and oils resources. There are two aspects of the production cost of biodiesel, the costs of raw material and the cost of processing. The cost of raw materials accounts for 60 to 70% of the total cost of biodiesel production. However, there are large amounts of low grade oils from palm oil industry that could be converted to biodiesel such as sludge palm oil (SPO). SPO is a by-product of the palm oil milling process that contains high free fatty acids (FFA). The use of SPO can lower the cost of biodiesel production significantly. The problem in processing SPO to biodiesel is the high free fatty acid content in the oil restricts the conversion to biodiesel when using conventional transesterification process. This invention develops a process to treat the SPO and produce biodiesel within the standard specifications of biodieselfuel

Study of operating conditions for biodiesel production from sludge palm oil using chemical reactor

Biodiesel is receiving an increased attention because of increases in crude oil prices, limited resources of fossil oil and environmental concerns. There has been renewed focus on using vegetable oils and animal fats to make biodiesel fuels. The main challenges in biodiesel industry are its production cost and limited availability of fats and oils resources. There are two aspects of the production cost of biodiesel, the costs of raw material and the cost of processing. The cost of raw materials accounts for 60 to 70% of the total cost of biodiesel production. However, there are large amounts of low grade oils from palm oil industry that could be converted to biodiesel such as sludge palm oil (SPO). SPO is a by-product of the palm oil milling process that contains high free fatty acids (FFA). The use of SPO can lower the cost of biodiesel production significantly. The problem in processing SPO to biodiesel is the high free fatty acid content in the oil restricts the conversion to biodiesel when using conventional transesterification process. This invention develops a process to treat the SPO and produce biodiesel within the standard specifications of biodiesel fuel

Sludge palm oil as a renewable raw material for biodiesel production by two-step processes

In this study, biodiesel was produced from sludge palm oil (SPO) using tolune-4-sulfonic monohydrate acid (PTSA) as an acid catalyst in different dosages in the presence of methanol to convert free fatty acid (FFA) to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), followed by a transesterification process using an alkaline catalyst. In the first step, acid catalyzed esterification reduced the high FFA content of SPO to less than 2% with the different dosages of PTSA. The optimum conditions for pretreatment process by esterification were 0.75% (w/w) dosage of PTSA to SPO, 10:1 M ratio, 60 �C temperature, 60 min reaction time and 400 rpm stirrer speed. The highest yield of biodiesel after transesterification and purification processes was 76.62% with 0.07% FFA and 96% ester content. The biodiesel produced was favorable as compared to EN 14214 and ASTM 6751 standard. This study shows a potential exploitation of SPO as a new feedstock for the production of biodiesel

Reduction of high content of free fatty acid in sludge palm oil via acid catalyst for biodiesel production

In this study, sulphuric acid (H2SO4) was used in the pretreatment of sludge palm oil for biodiesel production by an esterification process, followed by the basic catalyzed transesterification process. The purpose of the pretreatment process was to reduce the free fatty acids (FFA) content from high content FFA (N23%) of sludge palm oil (SPO) to a minimum level for biodiesel production (N2%). An acid catalyzed esterification process was carried out to evaluate the low content of FFA in the treated SPO with the effects of other parameters such as molar ratio of methanol to SPO (6:1–14:1), temperature (40–80 °C), reaction time (30–120 min) and stirrer speed (200–800 rpm). The results showed that the FFA of SPO was reduced from 23.2% to less than 2% FFA using 0.75% wt/wt of sulphuric acid with the molar ratio of methanol to oil of 8:1 for 60 min reaction time at 60 °C. The results on the transesterification with esterified SPO showed that the yield (ester) of biodiesel was 83.72% with the process conditions of molar ratio of methanol to SPO 10:1, reaction temperature 60 °C, reaction time 60 min, stirrer speed 400 rpm and KOH 1% (wt/wt). The biodiesel produced from the SPO was favorable as compared to the EN 14214 and ASTM D 6751 standard

Biodiesel production from sludge palm oil by ultrasonic energy

The main challenges for biodiesel production are the cost of raw material (fats and oils) and the cost of processing. In this study free fatty acid (FFAs) of sludge palm oil has been converted to fatty acid methyl ester via acid-catalyzed reaction using ultrasonic energy. Batch esterification process of SPO was carried out to study the influence of sulfuric acid dosage (0.5, 1, 2% wt/wt), molar ratio of methanol to SPO (6:1, 10:1, 14:1), and temperature (50oC, 60oC, 70oC). The reduction of free fatty acids (FFAs) was measured at different sonication time from 30-300 min and the optimum time was determined. It is reasonable to conclude that the conversion of FFAs to fatty acid methyl ester by applying ultrasonic energy is related to long sonication time. The results showed that the FFA content of SPO reduced from 24.5% to less than 3 % using molar ratio 10:1, reaction temperature 50o C and 2% wt /wt sulfuric acid to SPO in 300 minutes sonication time