Biodiesel from Waste Olive Oil: Transesterification Kinetics, Exhaust Emissions and Fuel Consumption - Highway and Urban Environment - page 56

Biodiesel from Waste Olive Oil:
Transesterification Kinetics, Exhaust Emissions
and Fuel Consumption
Laureano Canoira, Ramón Alcántara, Nikolaos Tsiouvaras,
M. Jesús García- Martínez, Juan García Galeán, Alberto Llamas Lois,
Evripidis Lois, and Dimitrios M. Korres
Introduction
Biodiesel is defined as “a fuel comprised of mono alkyl esters of long chain fatty
acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats” [1] . Transesterification (also called
alcoholysis) of triglycerides [2] and jojoba oilwax [3] for biodiesel manufacture
has been studied in our research group in the past few years. The European Union has
issued Directive 2003/30/EC, which mandates the use of biofuels in a percentage
ranging from 2% in 2005 to 5.75% in 2010 (calculated on the basis of energy
content), for all transportation fuels marketed within the member states. It is
expected that a significant portion of this amount will be biodiesel. However,
although the literature concerning the production of biodiesel has increased
dramatically in the last 5 years [4, 5] , data related to the kinetics of transesterifica-
tion are rather scarce: [6] presented the kinetics and final state of methano-, ethano-
and butanolysis of cottonseed, peanut, soybean and sunflower oils catalyzed by
sodium hydroxide and methoxide or sulphuric acid, and [7] studied the kinetics of
methanolysis of sunflower oil catalyzed with KOH. The effect of water on the
kinetics of cotton oil ethanolysis catalyzed by KOH [8] , and the kinetics of the non-
catalytic transesterification of soybean oil at 220°C and 230°C [9] , was described.
The kinetics of transesterification of rapeseed oil to biodiesel fuel in supercritical
methanol without any catalyst was described [10] , and [11] described the kinetics
and mechanism of the KOH catalyzed methanolysis of rapeseed oil for biodiesel
production. Moreover, the kinetics of methoxide base-catalyzed methanolysis of
L. Canoira, R. Alcántara, N. Tsiouvaras, M. Jesús García- Martínez, J.G. Galeán, and A.L. Lois
Department of Chemical Engineering and Fuels, School of Mines, Universidad Politecnica de
Madrid, Ríos Rosas 21, 28003, Madrid, Spain
N. Tsiouvaras, E. Lois, and D.M. Korres
School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens,
Iroon Polytechniou 9, Athens, 15780, Greece