Producing Biodiesel from High Free Fatty Acid Jatropha Curcas Oil by A Two Step Method- An Indian Case Study

Being an agricultural product, the properties of crude Jatropha Curcas oil (CJCO) and the biodiesel produced from CJCO are region specific. In this work studies were carried out to produce biodiesel from crude Jatropha Curcas oil with a having high free fatty acid contents (6.85%) obtained from rural areas within India. Due its high free fatty acid content, the crude Jatropha Curcas oil was processed in two steps. During the first step the free fatty acid content of CJCO was reduced to 1.12% in one hour at 60°C using 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio and 1%w/w of oil of H2SO4. After the reaction, the mixture was allowed to settle for two hours and the top layer of methanol-water mixture was removed. The second step was alkali catalyzed transesterification using methanol to oil molar ratio of 5.41:1 and the catalyst to oil ratio of 0.55% w/w to produce biodiesel from the product of the first step at 60°C.The maximum yield of biodiesel was 93% v/v of CJCO which was more than the biodiesel yield (80.5%) from the one step alkali catalyzed transesterification process.