Transesterification Kinetics Of Waste Cooking Oil And Its Diesel Engine Performance

Biodiesel is one of the renewable forms of energy and waste cooking oil (WCO) serves as an effective source to produce biodiesel through the process of transesterification. Kinetic studies on such chemical reactions help in scaling up the process, simulation studies including designing of reactors. In the present study, waste cooking oil was subjected to conventional transesterification process catalyzed by methanol and 1% (w/v) catalyst sodium hydroxide under different temperatures (40-65 degrees C). Methanol-oil was taken in the ratio 6:1 and maximum yield of biodiesel obtained was found to be 90% at 60 degrees C. The activation energy Ea of transesterification reaction of WCO to biodiesel was calculated and found to be 27.24 kJ/mol. A linear Arrhenius plot and high value of R-2 confirmed the irreversible pseudo-second order of the reaction. The biodiesel was characterized for various fuel properties such as calorific value, ash content and cetane number. Engine testing using lab scale internal combustion engine (ICE) revealed an increase in power output with lower fuel consumption with reduction of CO, CO2, NOx, HC emission. Hence this study concluded that the WCO could be a potential feedstock to produce biodiesel.