Synthesis of biodiesel from triglyceride / Muhamad Faizal Ahmad Fuad

Biodiesel is a promising diesel fuel substitute that can be produced from natural, renewable sources such as a wide variety of vegetable oils (that can be extracted from any oilseed crop: palm, soybean, canola, rapeseed, sunflowers), waste vegetable oil such as Deep-fat-frying oil and animal fats. Vegetable oils are mainly composed of glycerol esters of fatty acids (triglycerides). In the process of transesterification, the glycerol components of the triglyceride molecules are exchanged for the lighter methanol in presence of a catalyst. The process of trans esterification is affected by the mode of reaction condition, molar ratio of alcohol to oil, type of alcohol, type and amount of catalysts, reaction time and temperature and purity of reactants. In this research, the process for monitoring the transesterification reactions is GC and studies the behavior of biodiesel properties. Three principal variables, molar ratio of methanol to oil, amount of catalyst, and reaction temperature, affecting the yield of base-catalyzed production of methyl ester (biodiesel) from crude palm oil were investigated in this research. Base on this research, it was found that more molar ratio of alcohol to palm oil synthesis more amount of biodiesel.