Design of portable biodiesel plant from waste cooking oil

Abstract

The design of portable biodiesel plant from waste cooking oil has been done simultaneously based on biodiesel standard of SNI 7182: 2012. Design of biodiesel production involves several processes including esterification, transesterification, decantation, vacuum evaporation, and ultra-filtration. Production of biodiesel has been simulated using several software packages. Based on the simulation conducted, the esterification process was able to convert 92.8% of FFA into FAME by using sulfuric acid as the catalyst with 10% w/w of FFA. Transesterification showed the biodiesel yield of 90% by using NaOH as the catalyst with 1% w/w of triglyceride. Evaporation on vacuum system was able to obtain biodiesel with methanol content less than 0.5% with lower energy consumption. Purification of biodiesel using ultra-filtration requires considerable energy but it was able to produce the purity rate of biodiesel up to 99.8% with relatively shorter time.