Influence of fatty acid composition of woody biodiesel plants on the fuel properties

Abstract

Ten major trees used as the potential raw materials of biodiesel are taken as the samples. The influence of their fruit or seeds' fatty acid composition on the biodiesel was studied. The results show that the fuel properties such as cetane number, iodine number and oxidation stability are mainly determined by the degree of unsaturation of fatty acid in raw oils. When the degree of unsaturation of raw oils fatty acid is lower than 133.13, cetane number (GB/T 20828-2007) and iodine number (EN 14214) meet the standards. With the increase of the long chain saturated fatty acids, cold filter plugging point of the biodiesel product tends to be higher. When the chain length saturated factors is less than 8.41 and 2.72, it could meet the standards of 0°C and −10°C of cold filter plugging point. The raw materials for high-quality biodiesel have high content of monounsaturated fatty acids. Based on the compositions of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated methyl esters, a triangular prediction graph for biodiesel fuel properties was drawn, which could provide references for the prediction of the fuel properties of biodiesel product.