Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
biodiesel fuel may cause the maintenance problem and result in damage on engine in short-
term duration.
However, the biodiesel employed as a renewable energy has also forced the change in
food price and supply chain. Therefore, to establish an integral infrastructure of combining
energy, economics, environment and agriculture becomes a major issue for the biodiesel
application.
1. Introduction
Improving energy security, decreasing vehicle contribution to air pollution and achieving
reduction or even eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are primary goals compelling
governments to identify and commercialise alternatives to the petroleum fuels. Over the past
two decades, several candidate fuels have emerged such as compressed natural gas (CNG),
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and electricity power. These fuels feature a number of benefits
over petroleum fuel, however, they also exhibit a number of drawbacks like requirement of
costly modifications on applied engines and the development of separate fuel distribution that
limit their ability to capture a significant share of the market.
Biofuels like bioethonal and biodiesel have the potential to overcome those
disadvantages of replacing traditional fuels. Biodiesel, as an alternative and renewable fuel
consisting of the alkyl esters of fatty acids, can be derived from animal fats, vegetable oil
and waste cooking oil. It has been receiving a lot of attention lately due to its impacts upon
energy security, offering prospect of reduction of air-pollutants emissions as well as
economic and sustainable development compared to fossil fuel. In its principal use,
biodiesel is a potential replacement for conventional diesel, which in this instance, is the
term used to describe diesel generated from crude oil. Most research studies have depicted
no appreciable difference between biodiesel and diesel in engine durability or in carbon
deposits.
The biodiesel has been in commercial use as an alternative fuel since 1988 in many
European countries. It can be produced from a great variety of feedstocks including
vegetable oil and animal fat as well as waste cooking oils. The choice of feedstocks
depends largely upon geography. The biodiesel from Europe is primary produced from
rapeseed oil while in the United States both rapeseed and soybean oil are used and in
Taiwan as well as Japan waste cooking oil is employed. Biodiesel has several distinct
advantages compared with diesel fuel in addition to being fully competitive with diesel in
most technical aspects.
Biodiesel fuel is reliable, renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic. It is less harmful to
the environment for it contains practically no sulfur and substantially reduced emissions of
unburned hydrocarbon (HC), carbon monoxide, sulfates, polycyclic aromatic HC (PAH)
and particulate matter. It has fuel properties comparable to mineral diesel and because of
great similarity; it can be mixed with mineral oil and used in standard diesel engines with
minor or no modifications at all. Biodiesel works well with new technologies such as
catalysts (which can reduce the soluble fraction of diesel particulates but not the solid
carbon fraction), particulate traps and exhaust gas re-circulation. Being an agricultural
product, all countries have the ability to produce and control this energy source which is a
situation very different to the crude oil business. This work discusses the benefits of
biodiesel, its reaction chemistry, and the various sources and components involved in the
