National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India
Rupam Kataki Department of Energy, Tezpur University Tezpur, Assam. India
Worapon Kiatkittipong Department of Chemical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Silpakorn University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand Hui Li School of Thermal Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan, PR China
Brandon Lowe School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds Leeds, UK
Mangesh P. Moharil Biotechnology Centre, Department of Agricultural Botany, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Agricultural University, Akola Maharashtra, India
Biswajit Nath Department of Chemistry, Bodoland University, Kokrajhar, Assam, India Department of Chemistry, Science College Kokrajhar, Assam, India
Kanokwan Ngaosuwan Division of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep, Bangkok, Thailand
Carlo Pastore Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IRSA‐CNR) Bari, Italy
Nattawat Petchsoongsakul Center of Excellence on Catalysis and Catalytic Reaction Engineering Department of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Thailand
Ana Petračić Department of Mechanical and Thermal Process Engineering, University of Zagreb Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Zagreb, Croatia
Ramón Piloto‐Rodríguez Faculty of Chemical Engineering Universidad Tecnológica de la Habana Havana, Cuba
Armando T. Quitain Faculty of Advanced Science and Technology, Kumamoto University Kumamoto, Japan Center for International Education Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan
Umer Rashid Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ION2), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang Selangor, Malaysia
Samuel Lalthazuala Rokhum Hamid Yusuf Department of Chemistry University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam, India
B. Sangeetha Department of Biotechnology, St. Joseph’s College of Engineering, Chennai, India
Kumudini Belur Satyan Department of Biotechnology, School of Sciences (Block‐I), JAIN (Deemed‐to‐be University), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Shreshtha Saxena Biotechnology Centre, Department of Agricultural Botany, Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Agricultural University, Akola Maharashtra, India
Enrico Scelsi Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IRSA‐CNR), Bari, Italy
Krushna Prasad Shadangi Department of Chemical Engineering, Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla. Sambalpur, Odisha. India Naomi Shibasaki‐Kitakawa Department of Chemical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
Nittan Singh Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry Division, CSIR‐National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR‐National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India
Atthapon Srifa Department of Chemical Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand
Putla Sudarsanam Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry Division, CSIR‐National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR‐National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India
Pothiappan Vairaprakash Department of Chemistry, School of Chemical and Biotechnology, Center for Bioenergy, SASTRA Deemed to Be University, Thanjavur, India
Chhangte Vanlalveni Department of Botany, Mizoram University, Aizawl, Mizoram, India
Andrew E.H. Wheatley Hamid Yusuf Department of Chemistry University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Doonyapong Wongsawaeng Department of Nuclear Engineering Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Kejun Wu School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds Leeds, UK School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University Hangzhou, P.R. China
An Overview of Biodiesel Production
The advent of the industrial revolution had many benefits such as increases in wealth of the average masses, upgrade in living standards, and vast improvements in production of goods (both in quality and in quantity), which reduced prices drastically. Technological advancements also occurred in the transport sector, which enabled ease in travel, while the use of coal and petroleum skyrocketed: an example of this would be the 20‐fold increase in coal imports between 1550 and 1700 in Newcastle, England. Consequently, a proportional increase in mining of these fossilized reserves had to be done as far as from the early nineteenth century. Since then, the energy demand per capita has increased manifold to the point where current consumption trends cannot be supported without exhausting the remaining global reserves – alternative energy sources must be sought. Additionally, large areas of forest land had been cleared for fuelwood, which served as the primary energy source for cooking and heating in rural households. Widespread deforestation led to a rapid rise in global temperature since less trees are available for climate modulation. Also, upon using wood and other fossilized sources as fuel, huge amounts of particulate matter, smoke, and other noxious gases (NOXs, SOXs, CO, and CO2) are emitted, and thus their continued emission for the last few centuries has led to global warming, harmful impacts on terrestrial and aquatic life (through acid rain, aquatic pollution resulting in eutrophication), and changes in weather patterns, which has even impacted the overall health and life expectancy of humans (lung diseases caused by air pollution, water pollution leading to chronic diseases, etc.).
In order to combat or gradually reverse the effects of such a global situation where arable land and potable water are scarce, alternative energy sources that have no or negligible environmental impacts must be sought. Thus, renewable energy research over the last few decades has been steadily increasing and is now capable of changing an entire country’s energy consumption trend. A good example is Brazil, which runs entirely on “sustainable” fuels, having produced 26.1% (a staggering 26.72 billion liters) of the global ethanol being used as fuel in 2017, and many countries have tried to replicate the so‐called “Brazilian ethanol model.” Among the wide variety of renewable energy sources available, feedstock for biofuels such as biodiesel and bioethanol are limited to a few varieties. Vegetable oils (edible or nonedible) cannot be directly used in engines due to their incompatible physicochemical properties. This had been tested by Dr. Rudolph Diesel who used peanut oil for his internal combustion (IC) engine and reported many problems in required performance when run for extended durations. Thus, such oils are converted into esters that are the main component of biodiesel, a fuel suitable for use in diesel engines with minor modifications. To convert vegetable oils as well as other potential feedstock such as microalgal lipids, animal fats and greases, waste oils, and other miscellaneous sources, various approaches may be used with different conversion efficiencies. The most efficient conversion process, however, is transesterification, which may or may not be coupled with an esterification pretreatment stage depending on the free fatty acid content of the oil.
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