CDB 3082

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING LAB 4 PROJECT

MAY 2019

Eco-friendly approach of Biodiesel Production from waste

TITLE :
feed stock.

DATE : 9th July 2019

GROUP : 3

GROUP MEMBERS :
Jagbeer Singh Khera 16001706

Pravindeeran Veerasingam 16001993

Prashannaah Prabhakaran 16001875

Abdul Remy bin Mohd Fauzi 16002042

LECTURER : Dr Muhammad Ayoub

1
Table of Contents

1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 3

2.0 PROBLEM STATEMENT .................................................................................................. 4

3.0 OBJECTIVE ........................................................................................................................ 4

4.0 METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................... 5

A. Pre-treatment of WCO. ..................................................................................................... 5

B. Trans-esterification of pre-treated WCO ........................................................................... 5

C. Biodiesel analysis .............................................................................................................. 6

5.0 DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 7

5.1 How Biodiesel Is Produced .............................................................................................. 7

5.2 Production of Biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oil ........................................................... 9

6.0 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 11

7.0 REFERENCES................................................................................................................... 12

2
1.0 INTRODUCTION

In current world global warming has become a serious issue. Not only that depletion of
non-renewable fossil fuel and environmental pollution has becoming every country’s problem.
One of the major cause of greenhouse effect is the fossil fuel usage. To overcome these issues,
alternative energy source is needed which should be renewable, economical and environmental
friendly. More studies have been conducted on replacing the conventional fuel with other
environmental-friendly fuel. Biodiesel is highly recommended since it is biodegradable, causes
no harm to the environment and also can be retrieved from either edible or non-edible oils.
However, the cost of biodiesel is much more expensive than petroleum.

Biodiesel has a great potential as an alternative fuel. Biodiesel is a biodegradable and

non-toxic fuel, reduces the carbon monoxide emission to the atmosphere and also contribute to
recycling by photosynthesis (Ngoya Tshizanga, June 2017). The use of biodiesel has
encouraged strongly around the world due to environmental issues such as greenhouse effect,
climate change and etc. Chemical reaction such as transesterification is the main reaction which
takes place in biofuel production. It is a source of renewable energy which is environmental
friendly, non-toxic, and has lower emission gases when used for the combustion. As the raw
materials are present in abundant amount, biodiesel from rubber seed oil would be the best
idea. Globally, biodiesel has been producing mostly from edible oils but it is not preferable for
large-scale production as it can affect the food crops and fuel industry. It is found through
researches that producing biodiesel from edible source is also not economically feasible.

Biodiesel production should make use of low cost feed stock which is renewable and
energy efficient. Various kind of feedstock such as biomass, soya beans, food waste (such as
egg shells, cooking oil & etc) is used in order to produce biodiesel. Eco-friendly approach on
biodiesel production from waste feed stock is discussed further.

3
2.0 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Malaysia have transformed from agricultural to industrialization based in recent years.

The country have developed tremendously alongside there are a lot of environmental issues
that occurs. In the most recent news, the Prime Minister has announced that the country will
be increasing it usage of biodiesel which is blend together in petroleum and used for
transportation. Biodiesel can be made from various sources such as biomass, palm oil, or even
waste feed stock.

We have seen that vegetable oil is one of the source which is easily available and
eventually make biodiesel as renewable source. The most important aspect of it is that the
biodiesel should be environmentally friendly in production and usage too.

3.0 OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this project is to review the pre-treatment step, the physical and
chemical properties of waste feedstock and how biodiesel produced from waste feedstock
using the eco-friendly approach. Due to the awareness of the adverse effects of conventional
fuels on the environment and the frequent rise in crude oil’s prices, the need for a sustainable
and environment-friendly alternative source of energy has gained importance recently.
Biodiesel is proved to be the best replacement for diesel because of its unique properties like
a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, non-particulate matter pollutants, non-
sulphur emissions, low toxicity, and biodegradability.

4
4.0 METHODOLOGY

1. The production of biodiesel from used waste cooking oil begins with mixing raw
materials of used cooking oil collected into one.
2. The mixture is then precipitated for 24 hours.

A. Pre-treatment of WCO.

1. For treatment, a neck reactor equipped with a reflux condenser was used to avoid
alcohol vaporization.
2. The reaction contains WCO, methanol, and catalyst. The reaction mixture was fed
into a batch reactor and the experiment was conducted at 50 ͦ C for 6 h.
3. Mineral acids (HCl, H2SO4and H3PO4) were used for pre-treatment. After the
stipulated time period, the samples were withdrawn and centrifuged.
4. The methanol layer was drained off and the WCO was collected and washed with
deionized water three times.
5. The water content was removed by vacuum evaporation and the Free Fatty Acid(
FFA) s values were determined

B. Trans-esterification of pre-treated WCO

1. After pre-treatment, the transesterification process was carried out by mixing

potassium hydroxide, KOH with methanol (ratio of methanol: oil 6: 1).
2. Used cooking oil is then heated to 65 ͦ C. After the temperature is reached, the
methanol and KOH solution is added slowly while stirring.
3. After the heating process, the mixture is allowed to stand for + 1 hour.
4. Then, the reaction mixture was transferred to a separating funnel and mixture was
separated into glycerol and biodiesel
5. After the precipitate, the separation process is done by taking the bottom first
(glycerol), then the upper liquid (biodiesel).
6. Biodiesel purification is done by washing using hot water.
7. The ratio between the volume of biodiesel and water for washing is 1: 1
8. The biodiesel was then centrifuged for 10 min to remove moisture at room
temperature and subjected to analysis.
9. The qualitative analysis of biodiesel is done to evaluate the conversion of oil into
diesel.

5
C. Biodiesel analysis

1. The methanol was added in the biodiesel layer and shaken for 45 min and then
allowed to settle.
2. The unreacted oil settled down and biodiesel remains at the top.
3. The un-reacted oil was drained out and biodiesel is passed through the rotary
evaporator to remove the dissolved methanol.

6
5.0 DISCUSSION

5.1 How Biodiesel Is Produced

Generally, biodiesel is produced through transesterification process. According to Oxford

Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, transesterification is a chemical reaction
in which alcohol moiety of an ester is exchange for another alcohol. The main product of the
reaction is known as fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) or typically known as triglyceride. On
the other hand, the main raw materials to produce FAME are vegetable oil, animal fats and
microalgae oil (Carlina et. al, 2014; Ferrero et. al, 2015).

Figure 5.1 Chemical reaction of transesterification

An ideal transesterification process required the presence of good catalyst. The catalyst
will speed up the chemical reaction of vegetable oil and methanol by lowering the activation
energy of the reaction. Catalyst can be in the form of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or eggshell
ash as heterogeneous catalyst (Tshizanga et. al, 2017). The advantages of using
transesterification are high conversion with relatively low cost, mild reaction conditions,
product properties are closer to petro-diesel, and applicable for industrial-scale production
(Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, 2018). However, there are some disadvantages of
transesterification. The disadvantages are required low fatty acids (FFAs) and water content in
the raw material, extensive separation and purification steps, possibilities of side reaction to
occur, and generation of a large amount of wastewater (Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, 2018).

7
In addition, there is another method to produced biodiesel. The method is blending or also
known as dilution. As general rule of thumb, biodiesel is mixed with diesel with certain ratio.
Then, the mixture is applied into the diesel engine (Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, 2018). This
blended biodiesel would increase the power output and the amount of heat release is higher for
increased proportion of biodiesel (Oberweis and Al-Shemmeri, 2010). Due to the absence of
chemical reaction to produce the diluted biodiesel, anyone can self-produced at home given
that that particular person or people know the ratio of biodiesel to diesel. Therefore, blending
can save money especially farmers where the raw material to produce biodiesel is abundant
and most of tractors use diesel engine.

Furthermore, the other method to produce biodiesel is micro-emulsification. Micro-

emulsification is define as thermodynamically stable, isotropic liquid mixtures of oil, water
and surfactant (compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension
between two liquids) (Rajalingan et al, 2016). The advantages of micro-emulsification is the
process is relatively easy to produce and environmental friendly. However, micro-
emulsification has its drawback. The drawback are high viscosity, low stability (the addition
of ethanol can enhance the quantity of surfactant required to maintain the state of micro-
emulsification), and could lead to sticking, incomplete combustion, and carbon deposition
(Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, 2018).

Besides, the last known method to produce biodiesel is pyrolysis or also known as thermal
cracking. Fast pyrolysis is a thermal oxygen-limited conversion involving a rapid heating
(more than 1000ºC/s) of biomass at moderate temperature of 400-600ºC in short time period
of 1-5s, producing condensable vapors, gases, and biochar. During the cooling process, the
vapor compounds are subsequently condensed to liquid mixture also known as “bio-oil” (Ali
Imran et. al, 2018). The advantages of pyrolysis is the process is environmental friendly.
Despite that, pyrolysis required high temperature and expensive equipment and produce low
purity of biodiesel (contain heterogeneous molecules including ash and carbon residues)
(Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, 2018).

8
5.2 Production of Biodiesel from Waste Cooking Oil

Waste cooking oil or also known as WCO is oil from palm oil or vegetable oil that we used to
prepare our daily food. Repeated frying for preparation of food makes the edible oil no longer
suitable for consumption due to the high level of free fatty acid content (Bhargavi, 2015).
Hence, this will cause problem as there are no proper way to dispose the oil. WCO can cause
water pollution, soil pollution and disturbance to aquatic ecosystem. Instead of throwing the
oil away we can use it as a feed stock to produce biodiesel. Furthermore, this is a cost-effective
feedstock for Biodiesel production as it is readily available. By using WCO it will not cause
any disruption to the environment since we do not used crop as our feed stocks. By using crop
as the feed for Biofuels it will cause other competition among the natural resources like land,
food and water. By using food crop, it will cause disruption in food supply to the community
and there will be spike in food prices. Besides, using food crop will lead to deforestation,
biodiversity loss and the fertilizer use will have environmental climate impact. Hence it is the
best if we used WCO as our feedstock for the production of Biodiesel.

The chemical and physical property of WCO are different compared with fresh oil and
used oil due to the chemical reaction happen between the oil and the food during the preparation
of food (Bhargavi, 2015). This is one of the drawbacks of producing Biodiesel from WCO as
we can get the same chemical and physical properties of oil if we collected the WCO from the
community. Hence, WCO need to undergo pretreatment to remove unwanted impurities, water
and free fatty acid. The water content and high level of free fatty acid in WCO will often lead
to hydrolysis and saponification (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). This will yield a lower percentage
of biodiesel. There are several techniques used to reduce the free fatty acid content in WCO
which is acid esterification with alcohol and sulphuric acid (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). To
eliminate water content, a WCO sample is often heated to above 100 °C (ZahiraYaakobab,
2013).

After undergoing pretreatment, WCO will undergo the most important process in
producing Biodiesel which is transesterification or also known as methanolysis
(ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). This is the most common way to produce Biodiesel. This is a process
where WCO will react with alcohol to yield Biodiesel and glycerol. This process can be
improved with the help of catalyst. There are four different way to undergo this
transesterification process which is by using homogeneous catalyst, heterogeneous catalyst,
enzyme catalyst or no catalyst (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). As for the alcohol use primary and

9
secondary monohydric aliphatic alcohols are used in this reaction (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013).
However only methanol and ethanol is use in this reaction. Methanol is use for this process
because of its wide availability, low cost, and high reactivity compared with ethanol, which
minimizes the reaction time (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). However, methanol is a petroleum-based
alcohol. Thus, ethanol has the advantages of being derived from renewable agricultural sources
(ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). Ethanol is also more soluble in oil than methanol, which enhances
mass transfer during the transesterification reaction (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013). Moreover,
biodiesel produced using ethanol has lower pour and cloud points than that produced using
methanol which increases the storage ability of biodiesel (ZahiraYaakobab, 2013).

10
6.0 CONCLUSION

With the exception of hydropower and nuclear energy, the major part of all energy
consumed worldwide comes from petroleum, charcoal and natural gas. However, these
sources are limited, and will be exhausted in the near future.
Thus, biodiesel is an alternative and renewable fuel for diesel engines and has become
more attractive in recent times. The catalysts used in the production of biodiesel are
acids, bases and enzymes. Transesterification is a commonly employed method to reduce
the viscosity during the production of biodiesel. The purpose of this method is
to reduce the viscosity of oil or fat using acid or base catalyst in the
presence of methanol or ethanol.

.However, the biodiesel production by transesterification is strongly

affected by molar ratio of alcohol, reaction temperature, reaction time and catalyst
concentration. The main advantage in biodiesel usage is attributed to lesser exhaust
emissions in terms of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate
matter. Hence, the project concentrates on the development of economically viable as well
as eco-friendly substrates such as waste cooking oil for biodiesel production and briefly
discusses the factors that will affect the biodiesel production.

11
7.0 REFERENCES

Bhargavi, M. A. (2015). Biodiesel production from waste cooking oil. Journal of Chemical
and Pharmaceutical Research, 670-681.

K.T.Tan, K. A. (2011). Potential of waste palm cooking oil for catalyst-free biodiesel
production. Energy, 2085-2088.

ZahiraYaakobab, M. M. (2013). Overview of the production of biodiesel from Waste cooking

oil. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 184-193.

Transesterification [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular

Biology(2ed.).Retrieved from
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198529170.001.0001/acref-
9780198529170-e-19826

Carlinia, M., Castelluccib, S. and Cocchia, S. (2014). A Pilot-Scale Study of Waste

Vegetable Oil Transesterification with Alkaline and Acidic Catalyst. Energy Procedia, 45
(198-206). Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81984434.pdf

Ferrero, G. O., Almeida, M. F., Alvim-Ferraz, Maria, C.M and Dias, J. M. (2015). Glycerol-
enriched heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production from soybean oil and waste frying
oil. Energy conversion and management, 89 (665-671). Retrieved from
https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/catalog/6035678

Tshizanga, N., Aransiola, E. F. and Oyekola, O. (2017). Optimisation of biodiesel production

from waste vegetable oil and eggshell ash. South African Journal of Chemical Engineering,
23 (145-156).Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1026918516300877

Khairul Azly Zahan and Kano, M. (2018). Biodiesel Production from Palm Oil, Its By-
Products, and Mill Effluent: A Review. Energies, 11. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327066949_Biodiesel_Production_from_Palm_Oil
_Its_By-Products_and_Mill_Effluent_A_Review

12
Oberwais, S. and Al-Shemmeri, T.T. (2010). Effect of Biodiesel blending on emissions and
efficiency in a stationary diesel engine. International Conference on Renewable Energies and
Power Quality, 1 (304-310). Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318095160_Effect_of_Biodiesel_blending_on_emi
ssions_and_efficiency_in_a_stationary_diesel_engine

Rajalingan, A., Jani, S. P., Senthil Kumar, A. and Adam Khan, M. (2016). Production
methods of biodiesel. Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research, 8(3) (170-173).
Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306140139_Production_methods_of_biodiesel

Ali Imran, Bramer, E. A., Seshan, K. and Brem, G. (2018). An overview of catalysts in
biomass pyrolysis for production of biofuels. Biofuel Research Journal, 20 (872-885).
Retrieved from

https://www.biofueljournal.com/article_79433.html

13