Biocatalytic production of biodiesel from cottonseed oil: Standardization of process parameters and comparison of fuel characteristics
2011
Chattopadhyay, Soham | Karemore, Ankush | Das, Sancharini | Deysarkar, Asoke | Sen, Ramkrishna
The enzymatic production of biodiesel by transesterification of cottonseed oil was studied using low cost crude pancreatic lipase as catalyst in a batch system. The effects of the critical process parameters including water percentage, methanol:oil ratio, enzyme concentration, buffer pH and reaction temperature were determined. Maximum conversion of 75–80% was achieved after 4h at 37°C, pH 7.0 and with 1:15M ratio of oil to methanol, 0.5% (wt of oil) enzyme and water concentration of 5% (wt of oil). Various organic solvents were tested among which a partially polar solvent (t-butanol) was found to be suitable for the reaction. The major fuel characteristics like specific gravity, kinematic viscosity, flash point and calorific value of the 20:80 blends (B20) of the fatty acid methyl esters with petroleum diesel conformed very closely to those of American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) standards.
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