Experimental investigation of different characteristics of biodiesel derived from waste cooking and pure sunflower oil

Abstract

In this investigation, waste cooking and pure sunflower oil were selected as feedstock for biodiesel synthesis under microwave irradiation and conventional heating systems. Experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the effects of reaction variables, such as catalysts amount (0.5- 1.5wt %), oil: methanol volumetric ratio (4:1-8:1) and time (1-6 min) in microwave method and time (30-60 min) in conventional method. The best yield of biodiesel (97%) was obtained by the condition of 1 wt% NaOH, 4:1 oil to methanol volumetric ratio, and 4 min using microwave heating system. The important properties of biodiesel were analyzed and found to be within the limits of biodiesel standards. Compared with the conventional heating method the results show that microwave heating can be applied effectively to obtain high yield and reducing the reaction time from 1 h to 4 minutes. The use of microwave will help in providing an energy efficient and economical route for biodiesel production. Results also showed that the biodiesel obtained under optimum conditions from pure sunflower oil (PSO) and waste cooking sunflower oil (WCSO) exhibited no considerable difference but the cost of producing biodiesel from WCSO was lower than PSO. This research demonstrated that biodiesel obtained under optimum condition from PSO and WCSO was of good quality and could be used as a diesel fuel which is considered as renewable energy and environmental recycling process from waste oil after frying