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Biodiesel Production from Jatropha Curcas Oil

Niraj S. Topare, Shruti G. Chopade, Sunita J. Raut, V. C. Renge, Satish V. Khedkar and S. L. Bhagat

Energy plays an important role in the development of any nation. But with the present rate of consumption, conventional sources of energy like natural gas and petroleum will be exhausted shortly. That’s why the concept of using bioenergy is giving attention worldwide. Hence, biofuels appears to be a proven renewable energy option. In this paper, we address the issue of producing vegetable oil from Jatropha Curcas seeds, using both mechanical and solvent extraction methods. We are also interested in the production of biodiesel from the raw oil obtained (i.e transesterification or alcoholysis). Results showed that solvent extraction produced high quality oil than mechanical extraction. It was also found that parameters such as oil temperature, reaction temperature, ratio of alcohol to oil and purity of reactants are factors that affect the transesterification process. The use of KOH instead of NaOH as catalyst gave better quality of biodiesel.