Production of high-performance biodiesel with a high oxidation stability through a fractionation method using urea

Abstract

The presence of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in Indonesian commercial biodiesel products causes instability. The fractionation process is carried out on PUFA by applying the urea inclusion compound (UIC) method to improve its quality. This study aims to determine the effect of temperature and crystallization time on increasing the concentration of PUFA concentrates and to produce high-performance biodiesel products with an iodine indicator <30–40 g I2/100 g. The UCF phase product which has an iodine number of 44.01 and an oxidation stability of 18.61 h is obtained at a combination of temperature and crystallization time of 20 °C and 4 h, respectively, which is close to the criteria for high performance biodiesel (<30 –40 g I2/100 g). The longer complexation time and temperature significantly affected the FAME fractionation of the UCF phase.