Abstract
The escalating prices on the world market, depreciation of fossils fuel reserves and environmental concerns has lead to the quest for the alternatives sustainable renewable energy sources. The past decades have witnessed innovations developed to produce biodiesels from various sources such as Groundnuts, Soya beans, Palm oils, Canola, Sunflower, Castor nuts and Jatropha plants and animal fats. However, most of these raw materials are competitive as food sources in human food chain. This research assesses the use of Used Cooking Oils (UCOs) from food outlets in Kitwe Town, Zambia as source for biodiesel production. Of equal importance is the assessment of environmental impact of the current waste management practices employed in disposal of UCOs. Data was obtained by administering questionnaires to various food outlets. The study revealed that approximately 8500 L/year of UCO would be generated from the sampled area. Fast food outlets accounted for 76% of the overall UCOs production in the sampled area. It was found that UCOs were mainly disposed through drainage into Municipal Sewers with the possibility of fatberg generation. Reuse of the UCO by the correspondents was a common practice and any leftover was disposed into the environment. The results of this study indicated the UCOs could be a major source material for biodiesel production.
Highlights
The escalating prices on the world market, depreciation of fossils fuel reserves and environmental concerns has led to the quest for the alternative sustainable renewable energy sources
The study focused on capturing reliable estimates of Used Cooking Oils (UCOs) generation and disposal practises from most relevant generating sources where UCO becomes available in Kitwe
This research has revealed that there is a great potential in Zambia to produce biodiesels from the UCOs
Summary
The escalating prices on the world market, depreciation of fossils fuel reserves and environmental concerns has led to the quest for the alternative sustainable renewable energy sources. The past five decades has witnessed technological innovations developed to produce green energies mostly the biodiesels. This has been to meet the increasing energy requirements, as an alternative for diesel oil for internal combustion engines. Biodiesels offer a very promising alternative to diesel oil since they are renewable and have similar properties. It is a promising substitute for fossil fuels and it poses remedial solutions to environmental concerns. Biodiesel is a liquid biofuel produced by a chemical processes from vegetable oils or animal fats and alcohol that can be waste in diesel engines, alone or blended with diesel oil, [1, 2, 3]
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