Optimization of Effective Parameters of Pongamia Pinnata (Karanja) Biodiesel Using Taguchi Method

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel for diesel engines that is produced by chemically reacting vegetable oil or animal fat with an alcohol such as ethanol or methanol in the presence of catalyst. The growing interest in biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester or FAME) is because of the similarity of its properties when comparing with diesel fuel. Karanja (Pongamia pinnata), which is one of the source of biodiesel, widely spread all over tropical Asia, Australia, India and locally distributed throughout the state of Maharashtra( India) along the bank of rivers, very common near sea coast in tidal and beach forests in Konkan, along Deccan rivers. Mature seeds of Karanja have recently gained a great commercial relevance owing to their high oil content, which is used as an alternate source of fuel and energy. In this study, the optimization of experimental parameters, such as catalyst type, catalyst concentration, molar ratio of alcohol to oil and reaction temperature, on the transesterification for the production of Karanja methyl ester was performed. Alkali catalyzed method has been used for biodiesel production process by using catalysts such as KOH, NaOH, NaOCH3. The Taguchi method helped to understand the effect of control parameter and to optimize the experimental conditions from a limited number of experiments and contribution of each noise factor calculated by ANOVA. Finally the yield of Karanja methyl ester could be improved using control parameter which was obtained by Taguchi method.