Biodiesel Production from Oils Extracted from Date Pits

Biodiesel production had received a considerable attention as a green, non-toxic and renewable alternative to petroleum diesel. To avoid using vegetable oils, which are expensive and compete with food, as feedstock, waste oils have been proposed. However, these waste materials contain a large amount of free fatty acids that complicates the production process. In this work, biodiesel production using an alternative feedstock; namely oils from date-pits, has been investigated. These oils have the same favorable features of straight oils, and at the same time are considered waste, since they are extracted from a waste material. The yield of oils extracted using n-hexane in a Soxhlet apparatus was compared to that of oils extracted using methanol-chloroform solvent mixture. The extracted oils were then converted to biodiesel via transesterification with methanol in presence of Novozym&#174435 or Eversa&#174Transform. The highest oils extraction yield of 11.7%, per dry weight sample, was obtained using Soxhlet extraction apparatus compared to 8.9% using methanol-chloroform mixture. The highest biodiesel production yield was 30% of the oil used, achieved after 6 hours using Novozym&#174435 at 40°C, 5:1 methanol to oil molar ratio and 10wt% enzyme loading. By using a chemical alkaline catalyst, NaOH, at the same conditions, the yield was 27%.