Design and performance study on polypropylene biodiesel pilot plant for non-edible oils

Abstract

A cost-effective, efficient biodiesel production plant that conforms to the decentralized feed stock processing program in vogue in villages of tropical countries of Asia and Africa is the concern of the present study. A 50 L/batch capacity biodiesel reactor has been designed and fabricated using polypropylene consisting of reaction vessel, catalyst tank, settling and washing chamber, evaporation chamber, and methanol recovery system. The performance of the reactor has been studied using pongamia oil, jatropha oil, and waste vegetable oil using transesterification process. The biodiesel yield achieved were 93.75–96 % (v/v) for pongamia, 92.5–95 % (v/v) for jatropha, and 94–95.5 % (v/v) for waste vegetable oil. The biodiesel samples have acceptable fuel standards as per ASTM D-6751 and BIS (ISO15607) specifications.