Optimization of Biodiesel Synthesis from Solid Wastes of Oil-refining Factories

Biodiesel is one of the renewable guel for diesel engines consisting of the alkyl monoesters of fatty acids from vegetable oils or animal fats. The high value of vegetable oils ma;e production of a cost-effective fuel very challenging. Because of that, we use soapstock, a by-product of edible oil production, for cheap bioadiesel production. Beside, the study also aimed to optimize the biodiesel productin parameters by design of experiment. The parameters involved in the optimization process were the amount of catalyst, reaction temperature and molar ratio of methanol to oil. The high F.F.A. level of soapstock fat was reduced to less than 2% by q two-step pretreatment process. Each step car 20:1 molar ratio methanol to oil in the presence of 5% weight sulfuric acid as an acid catalyst in 2 hour reaction at 65°C. The second step product at the bottom was transesterified usin 6:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil and 0.7% weight sodium methoxide as alkaline catalyst at 55°C to produce biodiesel. Based from these optimom conditions, the observed ester yield was 96.325. Thus soapstock might be a valuable renewable raw material for the biodiesel production.