Abstract
Biodiesel is one of the most important types of sustainable alternate bioenergy sources. In developing countries like India, where edible oils are in short supply non-edible plant oils are used as biodiesel feedstocks. In the present work an attempt was made to produce biodiesel from crude neem oil. Due to its high FFA content, neem oil was processed in two steps: acid pretreatment followed by base catalyzed transesterification. The optimum combination for reducing the FFA of crude neem oil to less than 1% after pretreatment was found to be 1.58%v/v H2SO4 acid catalyst, 0.63v/v methanol to oil ratio and 90 min reaction time at a reaction temperature of 60oC as compared to 0.23 v/v methanol to pretreated oil ratio and 23 min reaction time for transesterification. The maximum yield of biodiesel was 90.5%. The properties of produced biodiesel were found quite comparable to diesel and also met the ASTM standards.
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