Lab-scale catalytic production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil – a review

ABSTRACT

The adverse effects of fossil fuels on the environment and the rapid exhaustion of oil reserves are major concerns in the current global energy demand scenario. As a result, biofuels have emerged as promising alternate fuel due to their renewability, clean emissions and economic advantages over petroleum diesel. Biofuels are obtained from renewable sources such as vegetable oils, animal fat, microalgae, etc. Amongst these, waste cooking oil is considered to be an economical feedstock. This review focuses on different pretreatment methods for waste cooking oil and its lab-scale catalytic transesterification to biodiesel. Homogeneous, heterogeneous and enzymatic catalysts are compared based on reaction conditions, method employed and product yield. The purification steps, biodiesel properties and engine emissions profile are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Biodiesel
• transesterification
• catalyst
• fatty acid methyl ester
• free fatty acid
• waste cooking oil

Acknowledgements

We take this opportunity to convey our sincere gratitude to Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd, Hyderabad, India, for providing full support and resources to complete this review. I would also like to thank Mr. V Vijay Kumar, Ms. Swetha Nemmani, Ms. Radhika Raghava, Ms. Bhargavi Radhakrishnan, Mr. Subash Koduri, Mr. Sarath Babu Reddy and Mr. Mayank Gupta for their endless support for completion of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.