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Pre‐treatment of waste cooking oil with high free fatty acids content for biodiesel production: An optimization study via response surface methodology
Author(s) -
Thoai Dang Nguyen,
Le Hang Pham Thi,
Lan Dang Thi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
vietnam journal of chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2572-8288
pISSN - 0866-7144
DOI - 10.1002/vjch.201900072
Subject(s) - biodiesel , response surface methodology , biodiesel production , diesel fuel , raw material , chemistry , acid value , pulp and paper industry , catalysis , vegetable oil , food science , vegetable oil refining , molar ratio , organic chemistry , chromatography , biochemistry , engineering
Biodiesel is an alternative diesel fuel producing from vegetable oils or animal fats. At the present, most biodiesel is made from cooking oils with a very low amount of free fatty acid (FFA). Therefore, the cost of biodiesel is higher than petroleum diesel. However, the production cost of biodiesel can be reduced by using low‐cost feedstock oils such as waste cooking oil (WCO). There are some studies about acid‐catalyzed esterification process as a pretreatment of WCO with high FFA for biodiesel production. However, there have not many appropriate methods to optimize for this process. In this study, based on response surface methodology (RSM), a mathematical model was established which indicated the impact of independent experimental conditions as well as the relationship between these variables (MeOH/FFA molar ratio, H 2 SO 4 /FFA catalyst content, temperature and reaction time) to FFA conversion. This model was significant by comparison with both experimental value and predicted number of the FFA conversion, and showed strong agreement for experimental parameters. The FFA conversion of 90 % (FFA content of 0.40 wt%) was obtained in optimal conditions: MeOH/FFA molar ratio of 40.11, H 2 SO 4 /FFA catalyst content of 10.64 wt%, reaction temperature of 60 o C and reaction time of 5 h.