INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHYTOFUELS AND ALLIED SCIENCES
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Date
2014-09-01
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
The Society for the Conservation of Phytofuels and Sciences
Abstract
This study investigates the effect of transesterification process conditions like temperature, concentration, time, amount of catalysts on the yield of biodiesel from Jatropha curcas oil in order to establish optimum conditions for production of highest yield. The kinetics orders, rate of production of biodiesel from Jathropha oil as well as some thermodynamic parameters were investigated. From the results obtained, a mass of 0.60 g (1.2% w/v) KOH was found to be optimum amount of catalyst as it gave the best yield. Optimum reaction conditions for methanolysis of Jatropha oil was achieved at methanol to oil molar ratio of 6:1, reaction temperature of 55°C, reaction time of 45 min, and stirring rate of 250 rpm. It was found that the kinetics data obtained for the transestrification process for production of biodiesel using Jatropha curcas oil fitted well into pseudo second order kinetics and its rate constant obtained is 0.0113 %/ ml min-1. The enthalpy change obtained for the process revealed that ΔH value of 6.53 KJmol-1K-1 supported endothermic reaction, and positive entropy change (ΔS) was estimated to be 0.614 JK-1 for 318 K and 0.248 JK-1 for 358 K leading to increase in the degree of disorderliness. Gibb’s Free energy change, ΔG was found to be spontaneous at 45 and 85oC while it became non-spontaneous at other temperatures. Thus, it could be concluded that the conversion of Jatropha oil to biodiesel holds a good promise in supplementary energy source for both industrial and domestic purposes.
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Keywords
Rate of reaction, Jatropha oil, Biodiesel, Transesterification, Thermodynamic quantities