The world is confronted with the twin crises of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation. The indiscriminate extraction and consumption of fossil fuels have led to a reduction in petroleum reserves. Petroleum based fuels are obtained from limited reserves. These finite reserves are highly concentrated in certain region of the world. Therefore, those countries not having these resources are facing a foreign exchange crisis, mainly due to the import of crude petroleum oil. Hence it is necessary to look for alternative fuels, which can be produced from materials available within the country. Although vegetative oils can be fuel for diesel engines, but their high viscosities, low volatilities and poor cold flow properties have led to the investigation of its various derivatives. Among the different possible sources, fatty acid methyl esters, known as Biodiesel fuel derived from triglycerides (vegetable oil and animal fates) by transesterification with methanol, present the promising alternative substitute to diesel fuels and have received the most attention now a day. The main advantages of using Biodiesel are its renewability, better quality exhaust gas emission, its biodegradability and the organic carbon present in it is photosynthetic in origin. It does not contribute to a rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and consequently to the green house effect. This paper reviews the source of production and characterization of vegetable oils and their methyl ester as the substitute of the petroleum fuel and future possibilities of Biodiesel production.

Biodiesel production through the use of different sources and characterization of oils and their esters as the substitute of diesel: A review

World energy demand is expected to increase due to the expanding urbanization, better living standards and increasing population. At a time when society is becoming increasingly aware of the declining reserves of fossil fuels beside the environmental concerns, it has become apparent that biodiesel is destined to make a substantial contribution to the future energy demands of the domestic and industrial economies. There are different potential feedstocks for biodiesel production. Non-edible vegetable oils which are known as the second generation feedstocks can be considered as promising substitutions for traditional edible food crops for the production of biodiesel. The use of non-edible plant oils is very significant because of the tremendous demand for edible oils as food source. Moreover, edible oils’ feedstock costs are far expensive to be used as fuel. Therefore, production of biodiesel from non-edible oils is an effective way to overcome all the associated problems with edible oils. However, the potential of converting non-edible oil into biodiesel must be well examined. This is because physical and chemical properties of biodiesel produced from any feedstock must comply with the limits of ASTM and DIN EN specifications for biodiesel fuels. This paper introduces non-edible vegetable oils to be used as biodiesel feedstocks. Several aspects related to these feedstocks have been reviewed from various recent publications. These aspects include overview of non-edible oil resources, advantages of non-edible oils, problems in exploitation of non-edible oils, fatty acid composition profiles (FAC) of various non-edible oils, oil extraction techniques, technologies of biodiesel production from non-edible oils, biodiesel standards and characterization, properties and characteristic of non-edible biodiesel and engine performance and emission production. As a conclusion, it has been found that there is a huge chance to produce biodiesel from non-edible oil sources and therefore it can boost the future production of biodiesel.

Non-edible vegetable oils: A critical evaluation of oil extraction, fatty acid compositions, biodiesel production, characteristics, engine performance and emissions production

Progress in biodiesel processing

Production and comparison of fuel properties, engine performance, and emission characteristics of biodiesel from various non-edible vegetable oils: A review

The use of inedible vegetable oils as an alternative fuel for diesel engine is accelerated by the energy crisis due to depletion of resources and increased environmental problems including the great need for edible oil as food and the reduction of biodiesel production cost, etc. Of a lot of inedible vegetable oils which can be exploited for substitute fuel as diesel fuel, seven vegetable oils, i.e., jatropha, karanja, mahua, linseed, rubber seed, cottonseed and neem oils were selected for discussion in this review paper. The application of jatropha oil as a liquid fuel for CI engine can be classified with neat jatropha oil, engine modifications such as preheating, and dual fuelling, and fuel modifications such as jatropha oil blends with other fuels, mostly with diesel fuel, biodiesel, biodiesel blends and degumming. Therefore, jatropha oil is a leading candidate for the commercialization of non-edible vegetable oils. There exists a big difference in the fuel properties of seven inedible vegetable oils and its biodiesels considered in this review. It is clear from this review that biodiesel generally causes an increase in NOx emission and a decrease in HC, CO and PM emissions compared to diesel. It was reported that a diesel engine without any modification would run successfully on a blend of 20% vegetable oil and 80% diesel fuel without damage to engine parts. This trend can be applied to the biodiesel blends even though particular biodiesel shows 40% blend. In addition, the blends of biodiesel and diesel can replace the diesel fuel up to 10% by volume for running common rail direct injection system without any durability problems.

Lokesh Kumar

Papers

Performance evaluation of a vegetable oil fuelled compression ignition engine