Waste Cooking Oil Resource Assessment As Alternative Feedstock For Biodiesel Production

The dwindling resources of fossil fuels coupled with the steady increase in energyrnconsumption have encouraged research interest in alternative and renewable energy sources.rnBiodiesel is one of the most promising alternatives for fossil fuels. To foster marketrncompetitiveness for biodiesel, it is necessary to produce biodiesel from economically viable andrnenvironmentally sound feedstocks. In this study the availability and feasibility of convertingrnWCO to biodiesel fuel has been studied. It was found that about 536,500 liters of waste oil couldrnbe generated as a waste from the assessed food service establishments in Addis Ababa annually.rnThis waste oil is usually poured into the sewer system of the city or disposed to a landfill sitesrnresulting in contamination of water and land resources. This environmental problem could bernsolved by utilizing used cooking oil to produce cleaner biodiesel fuel. In this work, biodieselrn(methyl ester) was prepared from a sample of waste cooking oil collected from local restaurants.rnMethyl alcohol with potassium hydroxide as a catalyst was used for the transesterificationrnprocess. Results obtained indicated that waste cooking vegetable oil was efficiently converted tornbiodiesel using a single step alkaline transesterfication process with 88.5% conversion yield.rnBiodiesel’s physical and chemical fuel properties including density, viscosity, acid value, flashrnpoint, cloud point, pour point, water and sediment content, iodine value, calorific value, and ashrncontent were determined according to ASTM test methods. All of the results are within thernrange of the ASTM biodiesel standard specifications with the exception of the kinematicrnviscosity, which slightly deviates from the standard requirement. Blending with petrodiesel orrnbiodiesel having low viscosity can easily improve this property. Although the overall availabilityrnof waste cooking oil is limited, production of biodiesel from this feedstock for diesel substitute isrnparticularly important because of its added benefit of recycling waste products, the decreasingrntrend of economical oil reserves, environmental problems caused due to fossil fuel use and thernhigh price of petroleum products

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