(219k) Transesterificatiom of Jatropha Oil in the Presence of Various Co-Solvents

Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), also known as biodiesel, derived from renewable feedstocks which fall in the carbon range C12-C22, and have similar properties as diesel. Typically the biodiesel is produced with transeterification reaction, where vegetable oil is reacted with methanol in the presence of catalysts. The biodiesel yield is affected by various factors: type of alcohol, molar ratio of alcohol to vegetable oil, type of catalyst (acid or basic), amount of catalyst, reaction temperature, reaction time and feedstock quality (e.g. free fatty acid content, water content etc.). In the present work the fatty acid methyl esters are synthesized from non-edible feedstock (jatropha oil) of indian origin. The synthesis of FAME from jatropha oil is carried out in two-step process i.e. acid catalysed esterification followed by base catalysed transesterification for the production of biodiesel. The transesterification of jatropha oil is carried out using various co-solvents: diethylether (DEE), tert-butyl methyl ether (tBME), and tetrahydrofuran (THF). The catalyst used was sodium methoxide (CH3ONA). The study is carried out to find the optimal operating parameters for jatropha oils in batch reactor. The transesterification reaction is carried out for the following conditions for different solvents: 1.0 wt% of CH3ONa, a molar ratio methanol/oil of 9:1, a molar ratio co-solvent/methanol 1:1, an agitation rate of 700 rpm, and a temperature of 30 ºC. The result of the experimental study shows that the yield of triglyceride into ester increases with increase in time. It has been observed that the approximately 85% reaction completes in 30 sec. The qualitative analysis of vegetable oils is carried out using thin layer chromatography (TLC). DEE and THF are found as the best solvent as compared to the other solvents used in the present work. A similar yield is obtained with both DEE and THF, however separation process is difficult and takes longer time as compared to DEE. Presently the studies are going on to characterize the fuel properties (e.g., density, viscosity, flash point, fire point, cloud and pour point, diesel index, water and free fatty acid contents) of biodiesel.