This study explores the potential of titanium oxide impregnated on calcium oxide (CaO-TiO2) as catalyst in transesterification of vegetable palm oil (VPO) to produce biodiesel. The biodiesel yield increased with catalyst calcination temperature and reaction time, and the usage of CaO-TiO2 led to higher biodiesel production when compared to reaction catalyzed by CaO. Biodiesel yield of 93.33% wa...

In 2004, the United States consumed 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel for on-road transportation (Annual Energy Outlook, 2007; http://www.eia.doe.gov/oifa/aeo/). In an effort to reduce dependence on petroleum-based fuel products and reduce their negative impact on the environment (Hill et al., 2006), production of biofuels from renewable energy sources has experie...

In the present study, jatropha oil cake (JOC), a waste produced from processing jatropha seeds for biodiesel production, has been investigated for the removal of nickel (II) from aqueous solutions. Jatropha oil cake contains different functional groups that can participate in the metal ion complexation. Jatropha oil cake is used in its natural form (JOCN) as well as in its immobilized form (JOC...

Microalgal lipid is a promising feedstock for biodiesel production. Effect of cultivation temperature on the growth and lipid accumulation properties of a freshwater microalga Scenedesmus sp. LX1 was studied. Scenedesmus sp. LX1 could grow in a wide range of temperature (10∼30°C), and the growth activation energy was 49.3 kJ·mol(-1). The optimal temperature to produce microalgal biomass and lip...

Biodiesel is a green (clean), renewable energy source and is an alternative for diesel fuel. Biodiesel can be produced from vegetable oil, animal fat and waste cooking oil or fat. Fats and oils react with alcohol to produce methyl ester, which is generally known as biodiesel. Because vegetable oil and animal fat wastes are cheaper, the tendency to produce biodiesel from these materials is incre...

Starch is considered a potential feedstock for biofuel production, particularly in light of the large-scale landfilling of food waste and other starchy materials worldwide. Lipid accumulation by oleaginous yeast is a promising method for biodiesel production from starch. However, most oleaginous yeasts are grown on monosaccharides or oligosaccharides because they cannot directly utilize starch....

Enzymatic mode of biodiesel production has recently gained a special attention among researchers because it eliminates the disadvantages of alkaline process such as end product recovery, waste water treatment, energy intensive and etc. Recently, considerable attention has paid in the direct use of intracellular lipase as a whole-cell biocatalyst (i.e immobilization of the enzyme secreting micro...

As part of a research program aimed at producing biodiesel fuel from plant oils enzymatically cells of Rhizopus oryzae (R. oryzae) IFO4697 (with a 1,3-positional specificity lipase) immobilized within biomass support particles (BSPs) were investigated for the methanolysis of soybean oil. The R. oryzae cells easily became immobilized within the BSPs during batch operation. To enhance the methano...

Biodiesel is usually produced from food-grade vegetable oils that are more expensive than diesel fuel. Therefore, biodiesel produced from food-grade vegetable oil is currently not economically feasible. Waste cooking oils, restaurant grease and animal fats are potential feedstocks for biodiesel. These inexpensive feedstocks represent one-third of the US total fats and oil production, but are cu...

The effect of the type of oil, types of alcohol and the alcohol concentration on the settling behaviour of glycerol during biodiesel production is discussed in the current paper. Biodiesel production was performed by transesterification using 0.58 % sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as a basic catalyst at 60°C and 20 min of reaction time. The yield of biodiesel produced in each experiment was separated f...