Bibliometric Analysis of the Use of Biodiesel Production from Essential Oils as Biofuels

Abstract

Second-generation biodiesel, which is produced from essential oil plants, has important advantages, including a high yield of biofuels and the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of this research was to examine the profile of original and review articles on biodiesel production from essential oils using bibliometric analysis. The search strategy identified 186 relevant and available peer-reviewed publications from 1981 to 2023, which were downloaded from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The retrieved documents were analyzed using VOSviewer. China was the predominant country publishing those documents, followed by the United States, India, Australia, and France. The keyword cluster analysis indicated the presence of 10 main research topics: diesel, fuel, and engine performance; extraction of lipids from microalgae; biofuel production from essential oils; green chemistry; the pyrolysis process; bioethanol production from renewable raw materials; obtaining biodiesel from essential oils; essential oil extraction; obtaining biofuels; and supercritical fluid extraction for fuels. The top three authors were Rahman, S. M. A., Cantrell, C. L., and Zheljazkov, V.D. The results showed that study topics such as different biodiesel raw material sources, biodiesel conversion technology, and the performance and emission characteristics of second-generation biodiesel are gaining popularity, with the goal to achieve a sustainable and clean environment.