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Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510

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Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers


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Biodiesel production via alkali-catalyzed transesterication of Malaysian RBD


palm oil Characterization, kinetics model
Mohammad Reza Shahbazi a, Behnam Khoshandam a,*, Masoud Nasiri a, Majeed Ghazvini b
a
b

Oil, Gas and Chemical Engineering Department, Semnan University Opposite Sukan Park, Semnan 35195363, Iran
Engineering Department, Shahroud Islamic Azad University End of Tehran Ave, Shahrood, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 4 October 2011
Received in revised form 15 January 2012
Accepted 25 January 2012
Available online 18 February 2012

Biodiesel as an alternative fuel was produced by transesterication of Malaysian RBD (Rened, Bleached,
and Deodorized) palm oil with alkaline catalysts. Potassium and sodium hydroxide were used as catalysts
in this reaction at temperature of 60 8C in a stirred tank reactor with 600 rpm stirring. Gas
chromatography was used to determine the fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) contents in the produced
biodiesel. Yield of reaction which was carried out with KOH as a catalyst is a higher value than the
reaction when NaOH was used as a catalyst. A second-order reaction mechanism which was purposed by
Leevijit et al. (2004) was applied to calculate the product concentrations. There was a good agreement
between the methyl ester concentrations measured experimentally and what was predicted from the
kinetic model. Finally important fuel properties of produced biodiesels were obtained and compared with
petro diesel and the ASTM standards which indicate that the biodiesel with acceptable quality was
synthesized experimentally.
Crown Copyright 2012 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights
reserved.

Keywords:
Biodiesel
Transesterication
Methyl ester
RBD palm oil
Catalysts

1. Introduction
Nowadays increasing in application of fossil fuels in different
elds caused increasing concern about using these fuels and what
happens after use or the global warming issues. In addition,
depletion of this great source of energy causes looking for
alternative and efcient fuels by many researchers. Indeed
removing disadvantages of conventional diesel fuel is another
relative subject. One of these alternative fuels is biodiesel, which
with respect to its benets such as non-toxicity, biodegradability,
and renewability has attracted many views. In addition to these
benets, greenhouse gas reduction and less pollution generation of
this type of fuel compared with other fuels are other major reasons
to use the biodiesel [13]. A life cycle analysis of the biodiesel
showed that the overall CO2 emissions were reduced by 78%
compared with the petroleum based diesel fuel [3,4].
Biodiesel or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) is produced by the
transesterication reaction among vegetable oils, animal fats or
waste cooking oils with an alcohol in presence of a catalyst. A
strong alkali, a strong acid, and an enzyme are three kinds of
catalysts which can be used in the transesterication reaction. The

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9125466376; fax: +98 2313354120.


E-mail addresses: shahbazi2004_teh@yahoo.com (M.R. Shahbazi),
bkhoshandam@semnan.ac.ir (B. Khoshandam), mnasiri@semnan.ac.ir (M. Nasiri),
majeed.ghazvini@gmail.com (M. Ghazvini).

main advantages of using a strong alkali as a catalyst are shorter


reaction time and less amount of catalyst required in the
manufacturing process of the transesterication reaction. Therefore a strong alkaline catalyst is widely used in the industry for
mass biodiesel production [3].
Many studies have been carried out to investigate the effects of
different parameters involved in the reaction, such as using
different oils and alcohols, alcohol to oil molar ratio, types and
amount of catalysts, reaction time or temperature [410]. In many
researches also the feasibility and effect of new processes, such as
carrying out the reaction under the microwave irradiation,
supercritical conditions and using ultrasonic mixing, have been
established [3,1113]. Although nowadays the reaction under the
conventional heating in presence of alkaline catalysts is the most
common way to prepare biodiesel, all mentioned studies have
been established on accelerating the chemical reaction and nally
obtaining the higher reaction yields within a short time. Reporting
a conversion of 98.4% for the safower oil to methyl ester at 6 min
assisted by microwave irradiation was shown that the process
under the microwave irradiation can be much faster than that
under the conventional heating [3]. Many studies have also
focused on the kinetics of transesterication reaction of different
feedstocks to nd the optimum conditions and determine the
FAME compositions [1418].
One of the most important issues on production of biodiesel is
its higher price compared with other fuels. The production cost is
affected by different factors. There is no doubt that the oil price is

1876-1070/$ see front matter . Crown Copyright 2012 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jtice.2012.01.009

M.R. Shahbazi et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510

Nomenclature
A
As
Cs
CN
DG
FID
GC
GL
k
mi
ME
MG
MW
ROH
RBD
TG
wt%
Yester

peak area
peak area of standard solution
concentration of standard solution
cetane number
diglyceride
ame ionization detector
gas chromatography
glycerin
reaction rate constant of Eqs. (2)(4) (L/mol s)
weight of component i
methyl ester
monoglyceride
molecular weight
alcohol
Rened, Bleached, Deodorized
triglyceride
weight percent
biodiesel content (%)

the main factor in production cost reduction [19]. Generally, all of


vegetable oils and animal fats can be used to produce biodiesel. The
most common ones are palm, sunower, rapeseed, and soybean oil.
In some researches tallow and waste cooking oil also have been
used [20,21]. The amount of harvested crops and world supply of
palm, soybean, and rapeseed are shown in Table 1 [11].
As it is seen the palm oil can be the best choice compared with
others due to its higher efciency and production rate with average
yields of 3.55.0  103 kg/ha/year.
Despite of having lower price, raw palm oil has some limitations
for transesterication reaction. The signicant limitation is high free
fatty acid (FFA) of oil which makes force to use particular catalysts. In
case of using alkaline catalyst which is the most common catalyst for
transesterication, the glycerol and alcohol must be anhydrous with
minimum FFA, because water and FFA make the reaction partially
change to saponication which produces soap. The soap lowers the
yield of ester, renders separation of ester from glycerol, and makes
the water washing stage very difcult [1,10,22]. Therefore it leads to
higher washing and purifying expenses. To eliminate the undesirable effects of humidity and free fatty acids, it was recommended
that the amount of them in oil be kept below 0.5 wt% and 0.05 wt%,
respectively [10].
Raw palm oil also contains some useful components, such as
vitamin E, free fatty acids, cartonoides, phosphatides, and plant
sterols (almost 1%), which will be removed during rening process,
bleaching and deodorizing and can be reused. Also remaining palm
oil is more convenient than raw oil to produce biodiesel [11].
Generally, regarding with highly produced palm oil in the world
and different fatty acid compositions of oils depending on
geographical locations and environmental conditions, working
on palm oil transesterication reaction is considered logically.
Depletion of fossil fuels, increasing the request to energy in the
world and low capacity of petroleum reneries in Iran beside air
pollution in big cities made it necessary to nd a renewable source
of energy like biodiesel. It would be difcult or even impossible to
provide sufcient need for oil seeds from the domestic agricultural
lands because of food production and nourishment value of edible
crops in a populated country like Iran. Palm oil produced in
Malaysia in Middle East can be a good source for biodiesel.
Malaysia is one of the biggest exporters of palm oil in such case that
its price in Iran can compete with other oils produced from
domestic cultivated crops.

505

In this work, biodiesel is produced by transesterication of


Malaysian RBD (Rened, Bleached, and Deodorized) palm oil with
methanol in presence of sodium and potassium hydroxide as
catalysts. Mass concentration of methyl ester and production yield
are investigated and checked with reaction kinetics prediction and
other previous works. The properties of biodiesel produced are
measured and compared with the ASTM standards for biodiesel
and the conventional diesel fuels.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials
The used rened palm oil was purchased from ERAPOLY SDN
BHD, Malaysia. To produce RBD palm oil, further stages consist of
bleaching and deodorizing were done in Margarin Mfg. Co. in Iran.
In these complementary stages, remained impurities that can
interfere the reaction as mentioned before, will be decreased
signicantly [22]. In this work the initial composition of palm oil
consisted of 96.3% triglyceride, 3.2% diglyceride, and 0.5%
monoglyceride. Gas chromatographic analysis of palm oil also
revealed that palmetic (42.56%), oleic (40.08%), linoleic (10.69%),
and stearic (4.76%) acids are the major fatty acids which altogether
comprised about 98% of the total fatty acids. Acidity number and
humidity which could have negative effects on the yield of reaction
were decreased to 0.1 mg KOH/g oil and 0.03 wt%, respectively,
after passing from the rening stages. Methanol, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and hydrochloric acid were prepared in
analytical grade from the Merck Co. Also n-hexane as the solvent,
methyl myristate as the internal standard, methyl palmitate,
methyl stearate, and other reference standards in more than 99%
purity were taken from the Sigma Chemical Co.
2.2. Instruments
The transesterication reaction was carried out in a 1-L twonecked ask reactor equipped with a condenser similar to set up
used in F. Mas work [23]. The reactor was heated up on a hot plate
that kept at temperature of 60  0.5 8C along the experiments. A
magnetic stirrer with a constant speed (600 rpm) provided the mixing
requirements.
2.3. Method
Biodiesel derived from the RBD palm oil was prepared by
reacting 500 g of oil with 113.2 g CH3OH (6:1 molar ratio) and 5 g
catalyst (1 wt%). Oil was heated up to 60 8C (510 8C less than the
methanol boiling point) and kept on this temperature in the
reactor. Required amount of catalyst was dissolved completely in a
known amount of methanol in a separate container and was added
to the reactor while stirring with agitation speed of 600 rpm. The
reaction was carried out for 60 min under the reux at 60 8C. The
optimum conditions of the reaction were set as those reported in
the literatures [16,24,25].
The reactor was equipped with reux condenser to condense
back the methanol escaping from the reaction mixture. After
passing 60 min, the reaction reaches to the equilibrium condition
and the mixture was neutralized (pH of about 7.0) with
hydrochloric acid. Then the mixture was cooled immediately to
the room temperature by putting the reactor in the ice bath at
about 5 8C. In the separation section of the experiment, the solution
was poured into a decanter and was then held at least for 12 h to
produce two phases: ester phase and glycerol phase. The phase
separation can be observed within the rst 10 min of settling.
During this time, the ester layer was opaque and shows an
incomplete separation. The opaque ester layer replaced by a

M.R. Shahbazi et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510

506

k1

Table 1
Products from the harvested crops and world supply of vegetable oils [11].

2003/04 world supply of oil (10 kg/yr)


2005/06 world supply of oil (109 kg/yr)
Crops harvested (103 kg/ha)
Oil produced (103 kg/ha)

TG ROH @ DG ME
k2

Palm

Soybean

Rapeseed

29.7
34.8
19.1
4.8

29.85
33.87
2.3
0.4

14.2
16.59
3
1.2

k3

DG ROH @ MG ME
k4

k5

MG ROH @ GL ME
k6

transparent one if more times have been given for settling. Usually,
the complete separation could take as long as 818 h. The methyl
ester which was the upper layer in the decanter was washed three
times with the warm distilled water to remove excess methanol,
catalyst, and remained glycerol. In the washing stage, water to
methyl ester ratio was considered to be 2:1.Washed biodiesel was
dried using heating up approximately to 110 8C in an open
container until making sure that no more steam rises from it.
Indeed the heating process can also drive off any traces of moisture
and remained methanol [24]. Finally the mixture was ltrated and
cooled down to the room temperature and the pure biodiesel was
stored for any further tests.
2.4. Analysis
The gas chromatography analyzer (Shimadzu 2010 Brand)
equipped with a ame ionization detector (FID) and a capillary
column (SP 2330 polar column 2  60 m ID: 0.32 mm; Supelco
Inc.) was used for analyzing the produced biodiesel. Helium was
used as an inert carrier gas at a ow rate of 1 ml/min. Oven
temperature started at 160 8C, kept for 5 min, and then it increased
to 210 8C at a rate of 2 8C/min and held at this temperature for
10 min. Methyl myristate and n-hexane were used as internal
standard and solvent, respectively [26].
The FAME content (mass concentration) in the product was
measured by the GC analysis according to the EN 14103 test
method [27]. In this test method the methyl heptadecanoate and nheptane were replaced with methyl myristate and n-hexane as
internal standard and solvent, respectively. To measure the
biodiesel content in the nal product, a standard solution was
prepared as 10 mg/ml methyl myristate with hexane solution at
rst. Then 250 mg of the sample was added to 5 ml of standard
solution and the mixture was injected to the GC column.
Different standard tests were applied to measure some of the
important physical properties of the produced biodiesel. The EN
ISO 3675 [28] for density measurement, ASTM D445 [29] for
kinematic viscosity measurement, ASTM D93 [30] for ash point
measurement, EN ISO 660 [31] for acidity number measurement,
and ASTM 2709 [32] for humidity measurement were applied. The
cetane number was also calculated from the correlation (1) given
in [33].
CN 33:6 0:539C18 : 0 0:303C18 : 1 0:0878C18
: 2 0:233C22 : 1

(1)

where CN indicates the cetane number and (C18:0), (C18:1),


(C18:2), (C22:1) are mass concentration of stearic, oleic, linoleic,
and erucic acids, respectively.
3. Product predictions using the reaction kinetics
The kinetics mechanism of the transesterication reaction can
be presented as a three stepwise reversible reactions. Two
intermediates of diglyceride (DG) and monoglyceride (MG) and
one mole of methyl ester (ME) in each step are produced. Indeed
one mole of glycerin (GL) in the third stage is produced. The three
stepwise reversible reactions are as follows [15,16]:

(2)

(3)

(4)

where ROH shows one mole of alcohol consumed in the reactions.


Based on the kinetic studies of transesterication reaction, it
was supposed that the production of methyl ester is just via the
above mechanism and there is no direct conversion of reactant to
the nal product. Therefore, the general form of the governing set
of second-order rate equations, characterizing the above reactions
for transesterication of palm oil, without shunt reaction, is
written as follows:
dTG
k1 TGROH k2 DGME
dt
dDG
k1 TGROH  k2 DGME  k3 DGROH
dt
k4 MGME

(5)

(6)

dMG
k3 DGROH  k4 MGME  k5 MGROH
dt
k6 GLME
dGL
k5 MGROH  k6 GLME
dt

(7)
(8)

dME
k1 TGROH  k2 DGME k3 DGROH
dt
 k4 MGME k5 MGROH  k6 GLME
dROH
dME

dt
dt

(9)
(10)

where k1 to k6 are the reaction rate constants and the bracket


denotes the concentration.
To evaluate our work, the molar concentration of methyl ester
at the end of the reaction was compared with what was predicted
from the kinetic model. The system of ordinary differential
equations has been solved using MATLAB software based on the
ODE45 command.
To calculate the weight of one mole of RBD palm oil, average
molecular weight of oil has been determined using the fatty acid
compositions by the following equation [19]:
X
%mi  MWi 38
(11)
MWester 3
where MWi and mi are the oil molecular weight and the percentage
of fatty acid i in the raw material, respectively. The constant value
of 38 is the summation of atomic weights of carbon and hydrogen
atoms in the triglyceride structure (C3H2) without considering
three fatty acids (RCOOH).
Using the known values of methanol to oil molar ratio and their
molecular weights, the initial molar concentrations of methanol
and oil were calculated as 4.9614 mol/L and 0.8269 mol/L,
respectively. Therefore by using triglyceride, diglyceride, and
monoglyceride concentrations which mentioned in Section 2.1, the
initial molar concentrations of them were obtained as 0.7963047,
0.0264608, and 0.0041345 mol/L, respectively. Methyl ester and
glycerin concentrations at the beginning of reaction also were
considered to be zero. The reaction rate constants are presented in
Table 2 [15].

M.R. Shahbazi et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510
Table 2
The reaction rate constants (L/mol s) [15].
1.057  102
0.000
1.184  101
8.187  102
1.310  101
2.011  103

k1
k2
k3
k4
k5
k6

507

fatty acid methyl esters after 60 min of reaction. Therefore it


indicates that the amount of different fatty acids did not change
during the transesterication reaction, and just fatty acids convert
to methyl esters.
The molar concentration of methyl ester per unit volume of
solution was measured using the biodiesel content in the nal
product and molecular weight of the esters. Also the average
molecular weight of methyl esters is calculated from the following
equation [19]:
X
MWi  %mi 14
(13)
MWester

Fig. 1 shows the typical concentration prole for each


component in transesterication of palm oil at 60 8C as a function
of time. This gure shows the rate of consumption of triglyceride
and formation of methyl ester and glycerin as well as the
intermediate compounds. The rate of consumption of alcohol
and its extra value also have been shown. The results revealed that
the production rate of methyl ester at the beginning of reaction is
fast in such manner that the molar concentration of methyl ester
reaches to an equilibrium constant value of 2.41 mol/L at about
22 min.

where MWi and %mi are the molecular weight and the weight
percent of fatty acid i obtained from the GC analysis, respectively,
and constant value of 14 is the molecular weight of CH2 in the
methyl ester molecular structure without considering the fatty
acid.
The methyl ester concentrations in two cases of using NaOH and
KOH as catalyst were measured experimentally as 2.31 mol/L and
2.43 mol/L, respectively, after 60 min. There is a good agreement
between the experimental results and what was predicted from
the kinetic model when using the rate constants of Table 2.
Therefore a second-order kinetic mechanism using the mentioned
reaction rate constants can justify the palm oil transesterication
reaction, properly. Mathematical models that used for kinetic
studies can be applied to predict the product concentrations,
design the experiments, and optimize the biodiesel production
processes. The kinetics of palm transesterication reaction studied
by different researchers and the second-order kinetics presented
for this reaction [15,16]. The second-order kinetics proposed on
transesterication reaction of soybean, sunower, brassica carinata oils as well [14,3638]. In some studies the mass transfer
controlling step on the rate of transesterication reaction was
investigated and the sigmoidal kinetics shape was analyzed
[39,40]. The kinetics of transesterication reaction of triglycerides
with methanol was compared with interesterication reaction
with methyl acetate in a recent work [41]. In this study 15
reactions including the transesterication reactions with secondorder kinetics scheme were considered.
At last the biodiesel conversion can be calculated as [42]

4. Results and discussions

conversion%

The FAME content (Yester) was determined based on the GC


results as follows [34]:

where Yester is the biodiesel content, m is the weight, MW is the


molecular weight, and subscripts O and B show the oil and
biodiesel, respectively.
The conversion of RBD palm oil to biodiesel at mentioned
optimum conditions was calculated as 81% and 90% for two types
of produced biodiesels using NaOH and KOH as catalyst,
respectively. The biodiesel produced using potassium hydroxide
as a catalyst shows that the higher conversion of palm oil
transesterication as is in good agreement with what was reported
by Meher et al. [25] on higher transesterication conversion of
soybean oil with potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. Rashid and
Anwar [5] reported the yield of 9596% in a process of
transesterication of rapeseed oil after the reaction time of
120 min and at temperature of 65 8C with other conditions same as
the present work. Comparing different catalysts, they also
concluded that the potassium hydroxide was the best catalyst.
Indeed Darnoko and Cheryan [16] reported 87 wt% and 90 wt% for
palm oil methyl ester concentrations in 50 8C and 65 8C in the
presence of KOH as the catalyst, respectively, which are
comparable with the results obtained in the present work. As it
is seen the results agree well with those achieved by the other
researchers. The biodiesel yield was reported as 97% for virgin oils
of sunower and soybean [43], 92% and 89.8% for waste frying and

Fig. 1. The concentration proles of methyl ester (ME), methanol (MeOH), glycerol
(GL), triglyceride (TG), diglyceride (DG), and monoglyceride (MG) during the
transesterication of palm oil at temperature of 60 8C, methanol/oil molar ratio of
6:1, catalyst concentration of 1 wt% oil and mixing speed of 600 rpm.

Y ester % 100

P

A  As
As



CsV s
m

(12)

P
where A is the summation of the GC peak areas for all methyl
esters (C14:0C24:1), As is the increasing amount of the GC peak
area of methyl myristate after adding standard solution, Cs is the
concentration of standard solution as 10 mg/ml, Vs is the volume of
standard solution (5 ml), and m is the amount of sample (250 mg).
Based on this relation, methyl ester contents in the nal biodiesels
were calculated as 88 and 93 wt% for cases when NaOH and KOH
used as catalyst, respectively. This value obtained as 9798% for
Karanja oil (a non-edible oil) transesterication with methanol and
KOH as a catalyst under the optimized conditions [35].
Fig. 2(a)(c) shows the chromatograms of fatty acid of feedstock
and produced biodiesel by transesterication of palm oil using
potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide as catalyst mixed
with the standard solution. The results of analysis have been given
in Table 3.
As it is given in Table 3, according to the gas chromatographic
analysis there are no signicant changes in the concentration of

mB =MWB Y ester
mO =3MWO

(14)

M.R. Shahbazi et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510

508

Fig. 2. The GC chromatograms of (a) RBD palm oil, (b) biodiesel, using NaOH as a catalyst mixed with the standard solution, (c) biodiesel, using KOH as a catalyst mixed with
the standard solution.

cooking oil [43,44] when alkali catalyst used in the course of the
transesterication reaction.
The quality of synthesized alkyl esters was evaluated by
measuring some important fuel properties and comparing with the
ASTM standards for biodiesel and the properties of conventional
diesel fuel. The quality of biodiesel is signicant from the engine
point of view. Different factors have been specied to check the
quality. The results have been given in Table 4.
Table 3
Fatty acid compositions in RBD palm oil and produced biodiesel in presence of
NaOH and KOH as a catalyst.
FAME
*

Myristic (C14:0)
Palmitic (C16:0)
Palmitoleic (C16:1)
Stearic (C18:0)
Oleic (C18:1)
Linoleic (C18:2)
Linolenic (C18:3)
Arachidic (C20:0)

RBD palm oil

After using NaOH

After using KOH

1.06
42.56
0.21
4.76
40.08
10.69
0.53
0.11

1.14
42.04
0.14
4.43
39.97
11.74
0.44
0.09

1.0
42.54
0.16
4.39
39.83
11.60
0.39
0.08

*
Numbers in parenthesis indicate the numbers of carbons and unsaturated
bonds.

As the major characteristic of the fuels, the kinematic viscosity


of the produced biodiesels was measured and reported in Table 4
based on the method presented in the ASTM standard D445 [29].
As it is reported, the values are in an acceptable range of 1.9
6 mm2/s. High viscosity leads to the poor atomization of the fuel,
incomplete combustion, choking of fuel injectors, ring carbonization, and accumulation of fuel in the lubricating uid. The ASTM
D93 [30] was applied for the ash point calculation. The ash point
is a very important parameter to consider in the handling, storage
and safety of fuels and ammable materials. The higher values in
ash point mean the risks of re to be decreased. The acid number
of produced biodiesels was measured as acceptable values in
comparison with the maximum acid value of 0.5 mg KOH/g
reported in the ASTM D6751 [46] on biodiesel standards. Another
important qualied parameters for biodiesels are water and the
sediment content. Water in the biodiesel can promote the
microbial growth and leads to the corrosion and formation of
emulsions and also causes the fuel hydrolysis and oxidation. The
results of testing the humidity in the present work were obtained
based on the ASTM D6751 [46]. The ASTM D976 was applied to the
calculation of the cetane index for biodiesel produced in the
presence of KOH as catalyst. The cetane index was measured as

M.R. Shahbazi et al. / Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers 43 (2012) 504510

509

Table 4
Physical properties of produced biodiesels and conventional diesel.
Property
2

Kinematic viscosity (40 8C) (mm /s)


Flash point (8C)
Density (g cm3)
Acid number (mg KOH/g)
Water and sediment (vol %)
Cetane numberb
a
b
c

Palm oil

ASTM Stand.

Using NaOH

Using KOH

Petro diesela

39.4
256
0.881
0.1
0.03
40

1.96
Min. 130

Max. 0.5
Max. 0.050
Min. 47

4.59
164
0.875
0.24
0.042
49.13
49.5c

4.61
166
0.876
0.16
0.036
49.05

3.06
69
0.855
0.11

50

Ref. [45].
Calculated from the correlation presented in Ref. [33] using fatty acid methyl esters proles.
Measured by The National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC).

49.5 that is very close to what was calculated from the correlation
(1). The minimum value of cetane number based on the ASTM
D6751 [46] is 47, that fullled the values obtained in the present
work. Therefore the properties of produced biodiesel in the present
work were found within the limits of standards.
5. Conclusions
The Malaysian palm oil as a good source of FAME was used to
produce biodiesel in the present work. Sodium and potassium
hydroxides were used as catalysts in the transesterication
reaction. The potassium hydroxide was a better catalyst to reach
to the higher yields on the transesterication of palm oil. Indeed
the conversion of Malaysian palm oil to the produced biodiesel
shows higher value than that reported by the other researches
regarding to the operating temperature. The molar concentration
of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) was compared with what was
predicted from a second-order kinetics model that it justied the
results of the present work at the time duration of 60 min.
The kinematic viscosity, ash point, and the cetane number of
the produced biodiesel were measured and showed as acceptable
values based on the ASTM standards. The biodiesel properties also
were compared with the conventional diesel fuel properties and it
shows that the synthesized biodiesel has the properties comparable with the conventional diesel fuel and can be considered as an
alternative to mix with it and use in motors.
Acknowledgments
We would like to appreciate the research laboratory operators
of Margarin Mfg. Co. for the gas chromatography analyses. Indeed
many thanks to the personnel of research laboratory of Tarbiat
Modarres University for measuring the ash point and the
kinematic viscosity of the produced biodiesel.
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