By: Seyeon Kim and Alisa Orajarvi

Mahidol Summer Internship 2010

Production Of

Biodiesel

• Crucible+ spoon• Oven• Small pots x2• Bunsen burner• Mortar and pestle• Small jar (to put the catalyst)• Double mouth round bottom flask x2• Vegetable oil• Balance 0.01g precision• CaOh2 (but after heated Cao)• Graduated cylinder 20ml x2• Beakers x3• Methanol, 25ml

Materials• Filter paper

x2• Funnel x2• Ruler x1• NMR tube• CDCl3

solution• Mircrowave• Na2SO4- 1

teaspoon• Magnetic

stirrer• Flask x1

• Biodiesel is the name of an alternative fuel, produced by renewable resource, like vegetable oil in this case, to make biodiesel blend. It is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and better for the environment.

What is Biodiesel?

• Biodiesel is not vegetable oil, but just made from a mixture of it and usually methanol.

• It is better for the environment because it is made from renewable resources and has lower emission compared to petroleum diesel. It is less toxic.

• It is available nationwide, but it can be purchased directly from the producers and marketers, distributors or public pumps everywhere.

More About Biodiesel

• The process that involves reacting vegetable oil or animal fats with alcohol.

Triglyceride + Alcohol Biodiesel + Glycerol

Biodiesel production is the act of producing biofuel, or biodiesel, through transesterification.

The process involves reacting vegetable oil or animal fat with alcohol (usually methanol or

ethanol).

Transesterification

Heterogeneous Catalyst ProcessFor example, CaO, MgO, BaO, ZnO, etc.-Solid, easy to separate, and reusable

Homogeneous Catalysts-liquid and will react and mix in, harder to

separate and purify

CATALYTIC TRANSESTERIFICATION

Scoop a few spoonful of Ca(OH)2 into a crucible.

Put the crucible in an oven and heat it 1 hour, temperature 500 degrees Celsius

While heating, the liquid from the catalyst evaporates, and the solid becomes dry.

STEP 1

Procedures

STEP 2

CaO (calcium oxide)

After heating, the catalyst becomes hard, and crush it into fine powder.STEP 3

Oil bath

We need to speed up the reaction, so we need to heat them up. These 2 oil baths are preheated so that we are not wasting time.

STEP 4

Preheat 2 oil baths to around 80 degrees Celsius

Flask10g of vegetable oil

STEP 5 Take out 2 flasks, and add 10g of vegetable oil into both flasks. Heat both of them in the oil baths.

Remember to add a magnetic spinner into the flask

Catalyst (CaO)

STEP 6 Prepare 1g of Cao catalyst for each flask (, but do not add them in yet).

Week 1

Experiment

No1. 7ml of methanol

No2. 3ml of methanol

Week 2

Experiment

No1. 5ml of methanol

No2. 10ml of methanol

STEP 7Add methanol into a beaker, and mix it with the prepared catalyst. (The amount of methanol is below… 4 experiments were conducted in 2 weeks, and the circled ones were what produced biodiesel.

STEP 8 Add the methanol and catalyst into the 2 oil baths and cap it. It has to react 1 hour at 60 degrees.

STEP 9 After the reaction is done, filter it.

Fold the filter paper, and prepare the funnel.

STEP 10 After filtering, gather a small amount of biodiesel in a beaker to be examined.

If carefully looked at, there are 2 layers. The bottom layer is glycerol, which will be drained out, and the rest that will remain is the biodiesel.

STEP 11 After a small amount of biodiesel is gotten, add a teaspoon of Na2SO4 into the beaker and mix it together, you should get a gooey substance.

Microwave the beaker about 5 minutes to get rid of the water. NaSO4 that was mixed also gets rid of water, microwaving just helps get the excess ones out.

Filter the gooey biodiesel mixture to get pure biodiesel.

STEP 12After filtering the 2nd time, use 2 drops of biodiesel into a NMR tube. Add CDCl3 into the tube until 5 cm (don’t go over).

Credits to P Titiya Meechai

1003

2%

2

CH

ME

A

AConversion

2AME = 2(0.7467)

3ACH2 = 3(0.6709)

%yield = 74.2

CaO1

04-0777 (D) - Lime, syn - CaO - Y: 50.00 % - d x by: 1. - WL: 1.5406 - Cubic - a 4.8105 - b 4.81050 - c 4.81050 - alpha 90.000 - beta 90.000 - gamma 90.000 - Face-centred - Fm3m (225) - 4 - 111.319 -

02-0969 (D) - Portlandite - CaO·H2O - Y: 50.00 % - d x by: 1. - WL: 1.5406 - Hexagonal - a 3.581 - b 3.58100 - c 4.893 - alpha 90.000 - beta 90.000 - gamma 120.000 - Primitive - P-3m1 (164) - 1 - 54.3394

Operations: Import

CaO1 - File: CaO1.raw - Type: 2Th/Th locked - Start: 10.000 ° - End: 79.913 ° - Step: 0.075 ° - Step time: 1. s - Temp.: 25 °C (Room) - Time Started: 1278476032 s - 2-Theta: 10.000 ° - Theta: 5.000 ° - Chi:

Lin

(Cou

nts)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

130

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

210

220

230

240

250

2-Theta - Scale

10 20 30 40 50 60 70

ConclusionWeek 1 : Ratio of methanol to oil No.1 15:1No.2 6:1

Week 2 :No.1 10:1No.2 20:1

These two experiments worked. Too little methanol doesn’t produce enough biodiesel, and too much makes it excess, making it watery.

THANK YOU