Transforming animal fats into biodiesel using charcoal and CO2

Abstract

This paper presents a simple methodology for producing biodiesel. This study confirmed that the main driving force of biodiesel conversion through the non-catalytic transesterification reaction is temperature rather than pressure. Non-catalytic biodiesel conversion can be achieved in the presence of a porous material via a thermochemical process and a real continuous flow system. In addition, this non-catalytic conversion of biodiesel can be enhanced by the presence of carbon dioxide (CO2). In particular, in this work, the transformation of animal fat (beef tallow and lard) into biodiesel was achieved using charcoal and CO2 under ambient pressure. This newly introduced methodology for producing biodiesel combines esterification of free fatty acids and transesterification of triglycerides into a single process and leads to a 98.5 (±0.5)% conversion efficiency of biodiesel within 1 min at 350–500 °C. The new process has high potential to achieve a breakthrough in minimizing the cost of biodiesel production owing to its simplicity and technical advantages.