Investigation on sustainable biodiesel production and its utilization in a reactivity controlled compression ignition engine

Abstract

The reuse of biomass waste is one of the environmental sustainability goals and is becoming an alternative solution for increasing producer s value. Biodiesel is one of the best-suited petroleum diesel substitutes and is now gaining interest because of its sustainability and environmental conservation potential. However, its price competitiveness and production constraints should be taken into account. In this point of view, present research work depicts the optimization of biodiesel production from waste cooking oil and comparison of biodiesel yield prediction by response surface methodology and artificial neural network. It was found that the optimal reaction conditions were 0.75 % wt/wt catalyst concentration, 9:1 molar ratio, 60 minute reaction time and 500 rpm stirrer speed. For these optimal conditions, an experimental fatty acid methyl ester content of 95.05 ± 0.26 % was obtained, which was in good agreement with the predicted yield. The higher value of correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.99) and a lower value of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE = 1.97) for artificial neural network compared to response surface methodology (R2 = 0.95 and RMSE = 2.71) proved that artificial neural network model is much better in predicting biodiesel yield. In recent days, waterless purification of biodiesel has aroused interest in the biodiesel production process. In this regard, an attempt has been made in this work to investigate the waterless purification of biodiesel from waste cooking oil using cow dung ash in various concentrations (1, 2, 3 and 4 wt/wt%). The experimental data are subjected to chemometric analysis. newline