BY: SWAYAM CHANDAN SENAPATI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this opportunity to

thank my chemistry teacher, ,for
encouraging and guiding me in my
project and for giving valuable
suggestions. I shall also thank our lab
assistant. Without thanking my parents
for their unwavering support this
acknowledgement would be incomplete.
Truly this project would not have come so
far without you people. I’m indebted of
you all. In the end, I hope my project,
however small, will make a significant
difference in this world.
CERTIFICATE
This to certify that Swayam chandan senapati of class
XII ‘B’ has successfully completed this Chemistry
investigatory project on the topic of
“Biodiesel”during the academic session 2022-2023 as
per the guideline issued by Central Board Of
Secondary Education (CBSE).

Internal External Principal

Signature Signature Signature
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
TODAY
PROPERTIES

USES

SAFETY

COMPARISION TO PETROL FUELS

CAN BIODIESEL BE PRODUCED

PROBLEMS FACED

PROCEDURE

OBSERVATIONS

PRECAUTIONS

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Need for biodiesel:

In this advancing age, the importance of fuels is tremendous. The world runs on
fuels such as petroleum and diesel. Every year, billions of tones of coal and
natural gas are extracted and used up. But these, being natural resources, are
nearing depletion levels. The search is on for alternative sources of fuel. This is
where Biodiesel comes into the picture. Biodiesel has been around for about 100
years or so. But it is not used widely like petrol and diesel.
However, the petroleum industries were able to make inroads in fuel markets
because their fuel was much cheaper to produce than the biomass alternatives.
The result, for many years, was a near elimination of the biomass fuel production
infrastructure.
Only recently, have environmental impact concerns and a decreasing price
differential made biomass fuels such as biodiesel a growing alternative.

What is biodiesel?

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that can be manufactured from algae, vegetable oils,
animal fats or recycled restaurant greases; it can be produced locally in most
countries.
Biodiesel refers to a diesel-equivalent processed fuel derived from biological
sources (such as vegetable oils) which can be used in unmodified diesel-engine
vehicles.
Chemically, transesterified biodiesel comprises a mix of mono-alkyl esters of
long chain fatty acids.
It is distinguished from the straight vegetable oils (SVO) or waste vegetable oils
(WVO) used as fuels in some diesel vehicles.
 It is safe, biodegradable, non-toxic and reduces air pollutants, such as
particulates, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons.

Properties:

1. Biodiesel is a liquid which varies in color — between golden and dark brown
— depending on the production feedstock.

2. Biodiesel uncontaminated with starting material can be regarded as

non-toxic.

3. It is practically immiscible with water, has a high boiling point and low
vapor pressure. Typical methyl ester biodiesel has a flash point of ~ 150 °C
(300 °F).

4. Biodiesel has a density of ~ 0.88 g/cm³, less than that of water..

5. Biodiesel has about 5–8% less energy density , but better lubricity and more
complete combustion can make the energy output of a diesel engine only 2%
less per volume when compared to petro-diesel — or about 35 MJ/L

6. The flash point of biodiesel (>150 °C) is significantly higher than that of
petroleum diesel (64 °C) or gasoline (−45 °C). The gel point of biodiesel
varies depending on the proportion of different types of esters contained.

7. However, most biodiesel, including that made from soybean oil, has a
somewhat higher gel and cloud point than petroleum diesel. In practice this
often requires the heating of storage tanks, especially in cooler climates.

Uses:

1. Biodiesel can be used in pure form (B100) or may be blended with petroleum
diesel at any concentration in most modern diesel engines.
2. Blends of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel (B20) can
generally be used in unmodified diesel engines. Biodiesel can also be used in
its pure form (B100), but may require certain engine modifications to avoid
maintenance and performance problems.

3. Biodiesel can also be used as a heating fuel in domestic and commercial

boilers.
Safety:

Existing oil boilers may contain rubber parts and may require conversion to run
on biodiesel, but the conversion process is usually relatively simple-- involving
the exchanging of rubber parts for synthetic ones due to biodiesel being a strong
solvent.

Biodiesel will degrade natural rubber gaskets and hoses in vehicles. They should
be replaced with FKM, which is nonreactive to biodiesel. However, this is more
likely to occur where methanol used to catalyse the transesterification process has
not been properly removed afterwards.

One should not burn B100 (pure 100% biodiesel) in an existing home heater
without breaking it in, as biodiesel will dissolve coagulated heating oil, which can
break off in chunks and cause problems.

The presence of water is a problem because:

 Water reduces the heat of combustion of the bulk fuel. This means more
smoke, harder starting, less power.
 Water causes corrosion of vital fuel system components: fuel pumps,
injector pumps, fuel lines, etc.
 Water & microbes cause the paper element filters in the system to fail
( rot), which in turn results in premature failure of the fuel pump due to
ingestion of large particles.
 Water freezes to form ice crystals near 0 °C (32 °F). These crystals
provide sites for nucleation and accelerate the gelling of the residual fuel.
 Water accelerates the growth of microbe colonies, which can plug up a
fuel system. Biodiesel users who have heated fuel tanks therefore face a
year-round microbe problem.
When compared to petroleum fuels:

Biodiesel typically produces about 60% less net-lifecycle carbon dioxide

emissions, as it is itself produced from atmospheric carbon dioxide via
photosynthesis in plants.

However, the smog forming hydrocarbon emissions are 35% greater, and the
Nitrogen Oxide emissions are also greater than those from petroleum-based
diesel.

Some vehicle manufacturers are positive about the use of biodiesel, citing lower
engine wear as one of the fuel's benefits.
Biodiesel's higher lubricity index compared to petrodiesel is an advantage and can
contribute to longer fuel injector life.

Biodiesel is a better solvent than standard diesel, as it 'cleans' the engine,

removing deposits in the fuel lines. It has been known to break down deposits of
residue in the fuel lines of vehicles that have previously been run on petrodiesel.
However, this may cause blockages in the fuel injectors if an engine has been
previously run on petroleum diesel for years.

Conversion to Biodiesel:

Some operational problems were reported due to the high viscosity of vegetable
oils compared to petroleum diesel fuel, which result in poor atomization of the
fuel in the fuel spray and often leads to deposits and coking of the injectors,
combustion chamber and valves.

Attempts to overcome these problems included heating of the vegetable oil,

blending it with petroleum-derived diesel fuel or ethanol, pyrolysis and cracking
of the oils.
Some International standards were set in order to regulate the quality of Biodiesel
produced around the world.The standards ensure that the following important
factors in the fuel production process are satisfied:
 Complete reaction.
 Removal of glycerin.
 Removal of catalyst.
 Removal of alcohol.
 Absence of free fatty acids.
 Low sulfur content.
Basic industrial tests to determine whether the products conform to the standards
typically include gas chromatography, a test that verifies only the more important
of the variables above.

Tests that are more complete are more expensive. Fuel meeting the quality
standards is very non-toxic, with a toxicity rating (LD50) of greater than 50
mL/kg.

Importance of Biodiesel today:

Biodiesel is used by millions of car owners in Europe (particularly Germany).

Research sponsored by petroleum producers has found petroleum diesel better for
car engines than biodiesel. This has been disputed by independent bodies,
including for example the Volkswagen environmental awareness division, who
note that biodiesel reduces engine wear.

Pure biodiesel produced 'at home' is in use by thousands of drivers who have not
experienced failure, however, the fact remains that biodiesel has been widely
available at gas stations for less than a decade, and will hence carry more risk than
older fuels.

Many municipalities have started using 5% biodiesel (B5) in snow-removal

equipment and other systems.

Biodiesel sold publicly is held to high standards set by national standards bodies.
Global biodiesel production reached 3.8 million tons in 2005. Approximately 85%
of biodiesel production came from the European Union.

In the United States, biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have successfully
completed the Health Effects Testing requirements (Tier I and Tier II) of the
Clean Air Act (1990).

Biodiesel is considered readily biodegradable under ideal conditions and non-

toxic.

A University of Idaho study compared biodegradation rates of biodiesel, neat

vegetable oils, biodiesel and petroleum diesel blends, and neat 2-D diesel fuel.

Using low concentrations of the product to be degraded (10 ppm) in nutrient and
sewage sludge amended solutions, they demonstrated

Separation of droplets and solids at phase separation profiles

that biodiesel degraded at the same rate as a dextrose control and 5 times as
quickly as petroleum diesel over a period of 28 days, and that biodiesel blends
doubled the rate of petroleum diesel degradation through co-metabolism.

The same study examined soil degradation using 10 000 ppm of biodiesel and
petroleum diesel, and found biodiesel degraded at twice the rate of petroleum
diesel in soil.

In all cases, it was determined biodiesel also degraded more completely than
petroleum diesel, which produced poorly degradable undetermined intermediates.

Toxicity studies for the same project demonstrated no mortalities and few toxic
effects on rats and rabbits with up to 5000 mg/kg of biodiesel.
Petroleum diesel showed no mortalities at the same concentration either, however
toxic effects such as hair loss and urinary discolouring were noted with
concentrations of >2000 mg/l in rabbits.

Since biodiesel is more often used in a blend with petroleum diesel, there are
fewer formal studies about the effects on pure biodiesel in unmodified engines
and vehicles in day-to-day use.

Can Biodiesel be produced?

Chemically, transesterified biodiesel comprises a mix of mono-alkyl esters of

long chain fatty acids.
The most common form uses methanol to produce methyl esters as it is the
cheapest alcohol available, though ethanol can be used to produce an ethyl ester
biodiesel and higher alcohols such as isopropanol and butanol have also been
used. Using alcohols of higher molecular weights improves the cold flow
properties of the resulting ester, at the cost of a less efficient transesterification
reaction.

A lipid transesterification production process is used to convert the base oil to the
desired esters. Any Free fatty acids (FFAs) in the base oil are either converted to
soap and removed from the process, or they are esterified (yielding more
biodiesel) using an acidic catalyst.

After this processing, unlike straight vegetable oil, biodiesel has combustion
properties very similar to those of petroleum diesel, and can replace it in most
current uses.
 A byproduct of the transesterification process is the production of glycerol. For
every 1 tonne of biodiesel that is manufactured, 100 kg of glycerol are produced.
Originally, there was a valuable market for the glycerol, which assisted the
economics of the process as a whole. However, with the increase in global
biodiesel production, the market price for this crude glycerol (containing 20%
water and catalyst residues) has crashed.

Raw material needed for production of

Biodiesel:

A variety of oils can be used to produce biodiesel. These include:

1. Virgin oil feedstock; rapeseed and soybean oils are most commonly used,
soybean oil alone accounting for about ninety percent of all fuel stocks; It
also can be obtained from field pennycress and Jatropha[22] other crops
such as mustard, flax, sunflower, canola, palm oil, hemp, and even algae
show promise.
2. Waste vegetable oil (WVO);
3. Animal fats including tallow, lard, yellow grease, chicken fat,[22] and the
by-products of the production of Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil.
 4. Sewage. A company in New Zealand has successfully developed a system
for using sewage waste as a substrate for algae and then producing bio-
diesel.

Problems faced:

Worldwide production of vegetable oil and animal fat is not yet sufficient to replace
liquid fossil fuel use.

Furthermore, some environmental groups object to the vast amount of farming and
the resulting over-fertilization, pesticide use, and land use conversion that they say
would be needed to produce the additional vegetable oil.

Many advocates suggest that waste vegetable oil is the best source of oil to produce
biodiesel. However, the available supply is drastically less than the amount of
petroleum-based fuel that is burned for transportation and home heating in the world.

It is important to note that one gallon of waste oil is not equivalent to one gallon of
biodiesel

Although it is economically profitable to use WVO to produce biodiesel, it is even

more profitable to convert WVO into other products such as soap. Therefore, most
WVO that is not dumped into landfills is used for these other purposes.
Animal fats are similarly limited in supply, and it would not be efficient to raise
animals simply for their fat. However, producing biodiesel with animal fat that would
have otherwise been discarded could replace a small percentage of petroleum diesel
usage.
Advantages of Biodiesel:
Biodiesel feedstock plants utilize photosynthesis to convert solar energy into
chemical energy. The stored chemical energy is released when it is burned,
therefore plants can offer a sustainable oil source for biodiesel production.

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted when burning biodiesel is simply recycling
that which was absorbed during plant growth. So the net production of
greenhouse gases is small. However, Biodiesel produces more NOx emissions
than standard diesel fuel.

At the tailpipe, biodiesel emits 4.7% more CO2 than petroleum diesel". However,
if "biomass carbon [is] accounted for separately from fossil-derived carbon", one
can conclude that biodiesel reduces emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) by
approximately 50% and carbon dioxide by 78% on a net lifecycle basis because
the carbon in biodiesel emissions is recycled from carbon that was in the
atmosphere, rather than the carbon introduced from petroleum that was
sequestered in the earth's crust.

Biodiesel contains fewer aromatic hydrocarbons:

benzofluoranthene: 56% reduction; Benzopyrenes: 71%
reduction.

Biodiesel can reduce by as much as 20% the direct (tailpipe) emission of

particulates, small particles of solid combustion products, on vehicles with
particulate filters, compared with low-sulfur (<50 ppm) diesel.

Particulate emissions as the result of production are reduced by around 50%,

compared with fossil-sourced diesel.
Biodiesel has a higher cetane rating than petrodiesel, which can improve
performance and clean up emissions compared to crude petro-diesel (with cetane
lower than 40).

Laboratory Synthesis of Bioediesel

Aim: Making Biodiesel from French
fries oil

Procedure:
 Examine the container of waste fryer oil and note its appearance. Depending
upon the oil, it may also be more or less solidified, because frying oils vary
widely from "lard" which is an animal fat, to lighter oils such as corn or soy
oil.

 Waste material in the used oil must be removed. For this purpose, a filter
made of a piece of cloth may be used. Filter out about 200ml of the oil.
Examine the filtered oil and note down its appearance.

 Carefully pour 1 mL of the oil into a graduated cylinder. Add enough

isopropanol to it to make 10 mL, cover with a piece of parafilm and invert
several times to mix. Pour the resulting solution into a 25 mL Erlenmeyer
flask and cover it with parafilm, too.

 Use a small piece of pH paper to measure the pH of the solution, and note the
pH in your notebook as well.

 A solution containing 1 gram of alkali per liter of water has been made and
will be put in a buret. Use this buret to add 1 mL of this alkali solution to the
contents of your 25 mL Erlenmeyer, cover and mix carefully by swirling.
Measure the pH with pH paper. Repeat as often as necessary to cause the pH
to change to around 8 or 9. Note the total volume of alkali needed.

 The concentration of the titrant was chosen so that the number of ml of titrant
equals the number of extra grams of alkali needed to neutralize the free fatty
acids. To this must be added the amount of alkali needed to catalyze the
reaction.

 If the alkali used is to be sodium hydroxide, this will be 3.5 g of NaOH per liter of
oil. If potassium hydroxide is to be used, we will need 9.0 g of KOH per liter of
oil.

Add the required amount of alkali.

 Measure the amount of methanol you will need in a graduated cylinder. You'll be
assigned an amount from 10% to 20% of the oil by volume. Add that amount to a
250 mL Erlenmeyer flask and immediately cover it with a piece of parafilm so it
doesn't evaporate.

 Carefully slide a stirring bar down the side of the flask, add the alkali from your
weighing boat, and cover with the parafilm. Put the flask on the stirrer and start it
mixing to dissolve the alkali. It will take a few minutes to dissolve.

 Using a graduated cylinder, measure 200 mL of filtered oil and add it to the 250
mL flask while stirring. Re-cover with parafilm, and let it stir for 1 hour.Remove
from the stirrer and pour your mix into a separatory funnel and cap. Be careful not
to let the stirring bar drop into the separatory funnel. Let the mixture settle at least
overnight.

 Use the separatory funnel to drain as much of the glycerin as you can into a
graduated cylinder. It tends to coat the sides of the funnel, so it may take several
minutes to get it out. Note how much you have. If there is a soap layer, drain it
into a separate graduated cylinder and note its volume as well. Pour the biodiesel
from the top of the funnel into another graduated cylinder and note its volume.

Intelligent micro fine filtration

 Use pH paper to check the pH of both the top biodiesel layer and the bottom
glycerin layer. If there was a soap layer, check its pH as well.

 Fryer oils will have a specific gravity generally around 0.94-0.96, while biodiesel
will have a specific gravity in the 0.86-0.89 range. We generally consider
biodiesel specific gravities above 0.9 to be incompletely transesterified. you can
 weigh a small amount of the biodiesel using a volumetric flask to calculate the
density, and from that the specific gravity.

 Viscosity is also an important property, since most applications such as diesel

engines and oil furnaces use a pump to spray the fuel into the combustion
chamber. Biodiesel must have a viscosity similar to petroleum diesel to be useful
in the same equipment.

Precautions
 The chemicals should be handled with care to avoid any mishaps.

 Sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide can cause chemical burns, either
from the solid form or the alcohol solutions. Therefore these must be used with
caution.

 Place the esters and the glycerin in the containers provided.

 Any excess or left over vegetable oil can be put back into the Waste Fryer Oil
container.

 Any excess alcohol or lye can be thrown away.

 Result and Conclusion
The oil sample thus obtained is put in a small oil lamp. It is observed that the
lamp burns well with less smoke. Therefore the synthesis of biodiesel has been
completed successfully.

The biodiesel produced was found to be releasing very less smoke. Therefore it is
less polluting. It can even be used in the common diesel engines. This will greatly
reduce the emission of CO2 and other poisonous gases as exhaust from
automobiles. Mass production of biodiesel from waste oil will also reduce the
amount of waste oil that is dumped in pits causing a lot of pollution.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 www.google.com/
 www.wikepedia.com/
 www.franken filtertechnik kg.com/
 www.enclyopidia.com/
 www.biodiesel.com/