Production of Biodiesel from Mixed Castor Seed and Microalgae Oils: Optimization of the Production and Fuel Quality Assessment

Abstract

The diminishing reserves and environmental consequences of the fossil fuel-based petrodiesel necessitate the exploration of an alternative fuel with better quality and minimum environmental impacts. The study explores the optimization of biodiesel production from nonfood and locally available mixed feedstocks as an effective and a sustainable approach to solve the insufficiency and high costs of single oil feedstock. The selection of suitable oil feedstocks and optimization of process variables are the prime issues for cost-effective industrial scale production of biodiesel from mixed feedstocks toward the industrial scale production of biodiesel. The objective of this study was to optimize process variables for the alkaline transesterification of mixed castor seed and microalgae oils to optimize the yield of biodiesel. Oils were extracted from dried microalgae (Chlorella vulgaris) biomass and castor seed kernel using methanol. The oils were purified, characterized, mixed in a 1 : 1 ratio, and converted to biodiesel. The transesterification experiments designed according to the central composite design (CCD) were used to optimize the yield of biodiesel through the response surface methodology (RSM). Experimental results were analyzed by response surface regression to produce a model for predicting biodiesel yield. Model significance, fitness, the effect of significant variables, and interactions between the variables on the yield of biodiesel were studied through the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimization of transesterification process variables revealed that the catalyst concentration of 1.23% (w/w), ethanol to mixed oil ratio of 5.94 : 1 (v/v), and reaction temperature of 51.0°C were the optimum conditions to achieve an optimum biodiesel yield of 92.88%. Validation experiments conducted under the optimum conditions resulted in the biodiesel yield of 92.36%, which is very close to the model predicted value. Various standard methods were used to characterize the biodiesel produced under optimum conditions, and it was found compatible with ASTM 751 and EN14214 biodiesel standards.