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BIODIESEL
PRODUCTION USING
JATROPA SEEDS
Presented By:
Presented To:
Nirmal Pandey
Mr. Suresh Poudel
Subash Sapkota
Department of Biotechnology
Sujan Shrestha
Nirwan Tandukar
CONTENTS
Abstract
3
Introduction
3-5
The advantages of Jatropha plant
6
The disadvantages of Jatropha plant
7
The advantages of Biodiesel and Jatropha
7-8
Transesterifcation
9
Transesterifcation kinetics and mechanism
10-11
Methology
12-15
Treatment and Recovery of Side Streams
16-19
Conclusion
20-21
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Abstract
Biodiesel is gaining more importance as an alternative fuel source
due to the depleting fossil fuel resources. Chemically biodiesel is monoalkyl
esters of long chain fatty acids derived from renewable feed stock like
vegetable oils and animal fats. It is produced by transesterification in
which, oil or fat is reacted with a monohydric alcohol in presence of a
catalyst. The process of transesterification is affected by the mode of
reaction condition, molar ratio of alcohol to oil, type of alcohol, reaction
time and temperature and purity of reactants. The cost of biodiesel,
however, is the main hurdle to commercialization of the product. The used
cooking oils are used as raw material, adaption of continuous
transesterification process and recovery of high quality glycerol from
biodiesel by-product are primary options to be considered.
INTRODUCTION
Jatropha curcas Linnaeus, a shrub and toxic tree with smooth gray
bark, belongs to the family Euphorbiaceae. It can grow all over the tropics
as well as endures on poor soil and severe heat but the leaves drop in cold
weather and arid conditions. The minimum average rainfall requirement is
about 250 mm per year and it can grow well under average rainfall 900-
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1200 mm. The height of Jatropha is around 4 m. Within 1 year, Jatropha
starts producing seeds but the maximum productivity is after 4 or 5 years.
Its life span is over 20 years. The utilization of Jatropha is found in every
part of the tree. The utilization of Jatropha products are for liquid fuel,
biomass, fertilizer, glycerol, medicine and detoxified animal feed.
Biodiesel production from Jatropha is one of the options being
considered for partially substituting diesel fuel for transportation in
various countries of world. However, several issues such as food versus
energy, energy and environmental benefits need to be addressed. Biodiesel
from Jatropha meets the requirement for the first consideration because it
is inedible and can be grown in waste land. However, the energy and
environmental issues need further consideration.
Biodiesel, an alternative diesel fuel, is made from renewable
biological sources such as vegetable oils and animal fats. It is biodegradable
and nontoxic, and is environmentally beneficial. One hundred years ago,
Rudolf Diesel tested vegetable oil as fuel for his engine. With the advent of
cheap petroleum, appropriate crude oil fractions were to serve as fuel and
diesel fuels and diesel engines evolved together. In the 1930s and 1940s
vegetable oils were used as diesel fuels from time to time, but usually only
in emergency situations. Recently, because of increases in crude oil prices,
limited resources of fossil oil and environmental concerns there has been a
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renewed focus on vegetable oils and animal fats to make biodiesel fuels.
Continued and increasing use of petroleum will intensify local air pollution
and magnify the global warming problems caused by CO2. In a particular
case, such as the emission of pollutants in the closed environments of
underground mines, biodiesel fuel has the potential to reduce the level of
pollutants and the level of potential or probable carcinogens.
The advantages of Jatropha plant
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Good agronomic traits
 Hardy shrub which grows in semi-arid conditions and poor soils
 Can be intercropped with high value crops such as sugar, coconut
palm, various fruits and vegetables, providing protection from
grazing livestock and
 Phyto-protection action against pests and pathogens
 It is easy to establish and grows relatively quickly.
 Yields around 4 tons of seed per hectare in unkept hedges are
achievable
 Has low nutrient requirements
 Requires low labor inputs
Multi-purpose plant
1.) Protective hedges around fields
2.) Reclaims marginal soils
3.) Non-edible and therefore does not compete with food supply when used
for biodiesel production
4.) Is energy crop that produce seeds with high oil yields
The disadvantages of Jatropha
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1.) Seeds and leaves are toxic to human beings and animals
2.) Toxicity is based on several components (phorbol esters, curcains,
trypsin inhibitors and others) which make complete detoxification a
complicated and difficult process.
3.) Competes with food production for land use
The Advantages of Biodiesel
Bio Diesel is the most valuable form of renewable energy that can be used
directly in any existing, unmodified diesel engine.
Advantages of biodiesel
 Provides a domestic, renewable energy supply.
 Biodiesel is carbon neutral because the balance between the amount
of CO2 emissions and the amount of CO2 absorbed by the plants
producing vegetable oil is equal.
 Biodiesel can be used directly in compression ignition engines with
no substantial modifications of the engine.
 Blending of biodiesel with diesel fuel increases engine efficiency.
 The higher flash point of biodiesel makes its storage safer.
 Biodiesel is non-toxic.
 Biodiesel degrades four times faster than diesel.
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 CO, CO2 and UBHC, PAH, soot and aromatics emissions are reduced in
biodiesel and its blends than in fossil diesel because biodiesel is
oxygen in structure and it burns clearly all the fuels.
 It is biodegradable.
Disadvantages of biodiesel
 More expensive due to less production of vegetable oil.
 Blends of biodiesel above 20% can cause engine maintenance
problems and even sometimes damage the engine in the long
term.
Transesterification
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Transesterification or alcoholysis is the displacement of alcohol from
an ester by another in a process similar to hydrolysis, except than alcohol is
used instead of water. This process has been widely used to reduce the high
viscosity of triglycerides. The transesterification reaction is represented by
the general equation given in figure below.
If methanol is used in this process it is called methanolysis. Methanolysis
of triglyceride is represented in the second figure.
Transesterification is one of the reversible reactions and proceeds
essentially by mixing the reactants. However, the presence of a catalyst (a
strong acid or base) accelerates the conversion.
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Transesterifcation kinetics and mechanism
Transesterification of triglycerides produce fatty acid alkyl esters and
glycerol. The glycerol layer settles down at the bottom of the reaction
vessel. Diglycerides and monoglycerides are the intermediates in this
process. The mechanism of transesterification is described below.
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The step wise reactions are reversible and a little excess of alcohol is used
to shift the equilibrium towards the formation of esters. In presence of
excess alcohol, the foreword reaction is pseudo-first order and the reverse
reaction is found to be second order. It was also observed that
transesterification is faster when catalyzed by alkali.
The mechanism of alkali-catalyzed transesterification is described below.
The first step involves the attack of the alkoxide ion to the carbonyl carbon
of the triglyceride molecule, which results in the formation of a tetrahedral
intermediate. The reaction of this intermediate with an alcohol produces
the alkoxide ion in the second step. In the last step the rearrangement of
the tetrahedral intermediate gives rise to an ester and a diglyceride.
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METHODOLOGY
One of the most internationally accepted methods to determine the
environmental impact over the entire period of the activities, products,
process for identifying significant environmental aspects is life cycle
assessment (LCA). Defined by SETAC, LCA is "an objective process to
evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or
activity by identifying and quantifying energy and material usage and
environmental releases, to assess the impact of those energy and materials
uses and releases to the environment, and to evaluate and implement
opportunities to effect environmental improvements. The assessment
includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity,
encompassing extracting and processing raw materials; manufacturing;
transportation; and distribution; use/re-use/maintenance; recycling; and
final disposal". The LCA process under the ISO standard 14040-14044
consists of four steps: goal definition-scoping, life cycle inventory, impact
assessment, and interpretation.
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Oil pressing and refining
After drying by sunlight, weight of dry fruit would be approximately 2,000
kg per 1,600 m2 the dry fruit is placed into a 1 hp cracking machine with
capacity 120 kg of seed/hour to carefully remove coats. This operation
yields Jatropha seed about 800 kg per 1,600 m2 Jatropha oil is extracted by
7.5 hp screw pressing engine with capacity 25 liters Jatropha oil/hour. 200
liters/1600m of Jatropha oil is purified by filtering with a 2 hp machine
capacity 150 liters/hour before being passed to the biodiesel conversion
machine. Fig. 2 shows the unit process of Jatropha oil production.
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Fig. 2 Unit process of Jatropha oil production
Biodiesel production
Jatropha crude oil can be directly used in agricultural machinery without
oil and engine modification. However, the quality of oil will be better and
there will be less long term problems if it is first converted into biodiesel.
The procedure of biodiesel production from Jatropha is very similar to the
biodiesel production from other plant oils like palm or soybean. Fig. 4
presents the unit process of biodiesel conversion in common batch of
transesterification using methanol, sodium methoxide, hydrogen chloride
and sodium hydroxide. Efficiency of the process reaches 95% by weight of
conversion rate.
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Fig. 3 Unit process of biodiesel conversion
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Treatment and Recovery of Side Streams
Introduction
There are three non-ester side streams that must be treated as a part of the
overall biodiesel process. These streams are:
1) The excess alcohol that is recycled within the process;
2) The glycerol co-product, and;
3) The wastewater stream from the process.
Methanol Management
There are several physical parameters that are important to the recovery
and recycle of methanol. Methanol’s relatively low boiling point, 64.7 °C,
means that it is fairly volatile and can largely be removed from the oil, ester
and aqueous streams by flash evaporation and re-condensation.
Glycerol Refining
The recovered glycerol from the transesterification reaction contains
residual alcohol, catalyst residue, carry-over fat/oil and some esters. The
glycerol from rendered feedstock may also contain phosphatides, sulfur
compounds, proteins, aldehydes and ketones, and insolubles (dirt,
minerals, bone, or fibers)
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Chemical Refining: There are several factors that are important in the
chemical refining or glycerol. First, the catalyst tends to concentrate in the
glycerol phase where it must be neutralized. The neutralization step leads
to the precipitation of salts. Also, the soaps produced in the esterification
must be removed by coagulation and precipitation with aluminum sulfate
or ferric chloride. The removal may be supplemented by centrifuge
separation. The control of the pH is very important because low pH leads to
dehydration of the glycerol and high pH leads to polymerization of the
glycerol. The glycerol may then be bleached using activated carbon or clay.
Physical Refining: The first step in physical refining is to remove fatty,
insoluble or precipitated solids by filtration and/or centrifugation. This
removal may require pH adjustment. Then the water is removed by
evaporation. All physical processing is typically conducted at 150– 200 °F,
where glycerol is less viscous, but still stable.
Glycerol Purification: The final purification of glycerol is completed using
vacuum distillation with steam injection, followed by activated carbon
bleaching. The advantages of this approach are that this is a wellestablished technology. The primary disadvantage is that the process is
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capital and energy intensive. Vacuum distillation of glycerol is best suited
to operations > 25 tons per day.
Ion exchange purification of glycerol is an attractive alternative to vacuum
distillation for smaller capacity plants. The ion exchange system uses
cation, anion, and mixed bed exchangers to remove catalyst and other
impurities. The glycerol is first diluted with soft water to a 15 to 35 percent
glycerol-in-water solution. The ion exchange is followed by vacuum
distillation or flash drying for water removal, often to an 85 percent
partially refined glycerol.
System is suited to smaller capacity operations. The disadvantages are that
the system is subject to fouling by fatty acids, oils and soaps. The system
also requires regeneration of the beds producing large quantities of
wastewater. Regeneration requires parallel systems to operate and
regenerate simultaneously.
Wastewater Considerations
Ester washing produces about 1 gallon of water per gallon of ester per
wash. All process water must be softened to eliminate calcium and
magnesium salts and treated to remove iron and copper ions. The ester
wash water will have a fairly high BOD from the residual fat/oil, ester, and
glycerol. The glycerol ion exchange systems can produce large quantities of
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low salt waters as a result of the regeneration process. In addition, water
softening, ion exchange and cooling water blow down will contribute a
moderate dissolved salts burden.
The aggregate process waste waters should meet local municipal waste
treatment plant disposal requirements, if methanol is fully recovered in the
plant and not present in the wastewater. In many areas, internal treatment
and recycle of the process water may lead to cost savings and easier
permitting of the process facility.
CONCLUSION
The plant is widely seen to have potential to help combat the greenhouse
effect, create additional income for the rural poor, and provide a major
source of renewable energy both locally and inter-nationally. The oil from
its seeds is the most valuable product since it can be converted into
biodiesel. Biodiesel has become more attractive as an alternative to fossil
diesel because of its environmental benefits and the fact that it is made
from renewable resources. J. curcas L. is a promising source of biodiesel
since its seeds contain high amount of oil and the species has good
agronomic traits. These properties of J. curcas L. have attracted a lot of
projects developers. At present, many countries have started cultivating
Jatropha trees on large scale, although little is known about the positive
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and negative effects of the large scale production of J. curcas L. on ecology
as well as other socio-economic situations.
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REFERENCES
1. http://www.biodieseltechnologiesindia.com.
2. www.jatrophabiodiesel.org/bioDiesel.php
3. www.jatropha.pro/PDF%20bestanden/GHG%20Thailand.pdf
4. www.academicjournals.org/sre/PDF/pdf2010/18Jul/Parawira.pdf
5. www.waset.org/journals/waset/v50/v50-85.pdf
6. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha_curcas
7. www.eurojournals.com/ejsr_29_3_11.pdf
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