Optimized Biodiesel Preparation from Waste Cooking Oil as a Fuel for Unmodified Diesel Engines

Abstract

The continuous fluctuation in the price of crude oil in the international market during the
Covid-19 situation forced all the nation to work for self-sustainability in the energy sector.
This pandemic condition also teaches all to utilize available sources effectively. So to deal
with dual problems the optimized conversion of waste into an energy source is the most
effective solution. In the present work waste cooking oil is converted into biodiesel and the
production process is optimized using the response surface methodology technique. The
central composite design approach of RSM is selected for optimization in the present work
which providesa better result in limited experiments. The yield of waste cooking oil biodiesel
is optimized through four parameters i.e. catalyst concentration, temp., time, and alcohol to
oil molar ratio. The effect of all these parameters isanalyzed exhaustively with the help of
design expert software. The physicochemical properties of optimized WCOB are measured
and the results are compared with petrodiesel fuel and normally prepared WCOB. It is found
that the yield of WCOB is increased by more than 4% while prepared with optimized
parameter values. The physicochemical properties of optimized WCOB were also found
better as compared to normally prepared WCOB and comparable to petrodiesel. Hence it can
be concluded that the optimization of biodiesel production not only improves the yield but
also improves the quality of the biodiesel.