High quality biodiesel production from pork lard by high solvent additive

Abstract

Large scale biodiesel production by using low cost and abundant feedstock as waste animal fat is becoming more important due to petroleum reserves crisis and adverse environmental problems. This paper has experimentally developed a new method for lard synthesis by using suitable conditions of production with high solvent blending. A polynomial equation was obtained for lard biodiesel yields as a function of synthesis parameters. The validity of the predictive model was confirmed by validation experiments. The suitable combination for high quality biodiesel production from lard was less than 2.0 wt.% catalyst with 10:1 methanol/lard molar ratio and 65.0 wt.% solvent additive. The significant point of this method was to use high solvent blending ratios for lard synthesis to overcome poor solubility problem between highly concentrated free fatty acid pork lard and catalyst. Using this method, gave high yields of biodiesel in short reaction time. The evaluation of the synthesis was made using gas chromatography. The final products fulfilled all of the requirements of ASTM D6751-09 and EN 14214 standards. Overall, this process can be useful for larger scale industrial process with low energy consumption.