Production of Biodiesel from Thumba Oil: Optimization of Process Parameters

Fast depletion of world’s petroleum reserves and increasing ecological concerns has created a great demand for environmentally benign renewable energy resources. Biodiesel has emerged as a sustainable alternative to petroleum origin diesel and its usage have been encouraged by many countries. Transesterification reaction is the most common process to produce biodiesel from variety of vegetable oils and animal fat. Transesterification process depends upon a number of process parameters which are required to be optimized in order to maximize the biodiesel yield. Thumba oil is an underutilized non-edible vegetable oil, available in large quantities in Rajasthan, India and its potential suitability as a biodiesel feedstock is still not evaluated comprehensively. In this research paper, the transesterification process for production of Thumba oil methyl ester has been analyzed and the various process variables like temperature, catalyst concentration, amount of methanol and reaction time have been optimized with the objective to maximize yield. The optimum conditions for transesterification of Thumba oil with methanol and KOH as catalyst were found to be 60°C reaction temperature, 6:1 molar ratio of Thumba oil to methanol, 0.75% catalyst (w/w ) and 1 hour reaction time.