Pretreatment of high free fatty acid canola oil using NaOH--catalyzed glycerolysis via conventional heating

• Main Authors: Co, V China Marian B., Sarangaya, Gail V., Ventilacion, Dennis V., Jr.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2016
• Subjects: Fatty acids; Canola oil; Heating
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/7598
• Institution: De La Salle University

The production of biodiesel is a booming industry because it is a possible alternative to the limited supply of fossil fuels. The feedstock for the production of biodiesel are organic oils but most of the crude organic oils used have high free fatty acid content. This lowers the yield of biodiesel production due to the formation of soaps during the transesterification process. This study focuses on a technique known as glycerolysis, specifically base-catalyzed glycerolysis, which is a pre-esterification process that makes use of glycerol to lower the free fatty acid content of the oil by converting the free fatty acids into esters. The significance of this study is for the low-temperature base-catalyzed glycerolysis pre-treatment of high free fatty acid oil to be tested and be made available for future references in the pretreatment of other oils viable for biodiesel production. As well as to determine the effects of the parameters on the degree of conversion of the free fatty acids to esters that would consequently lead to the determination of the optimal parameters to be used to achieve the highest %FFA conversion of the oil feedstock. For the purpose of this study the oil used was simulated canola oil that has a free fatty acid content of about 15%. The optimal parameters for glycerolysis was determined by varying the reaction temperature from 60 to 90oC, the reaction time from 30 to 90 minutes, and the amount of catalyst to be used from 1 to 3 wt%. A full factorial design was used for the analysis of the experimental data with the help of the Design Expert 7.0.0 statistical software. The optimal combination of parameters determined based on the experimental runs is at 60oC reaction temperature, 60 minutes reaction time, and 2% w/w catalyst with a percent conversion of 99.67%. Based on the statistical analysis, only the amount of catalyst and its interaction with temperature have significant effect on the conversion with a p-value less than 0.05. From the model generated using ANOVA and multiple