Reactive-extraction of pongamia seeds for biodiesel production

822-828Biodiesel (FAME) was produced from Pongamia seeds (commonly known as Karanja) by reactive-extraction. Reactiveextraction involves contacting ground seeds directly with alcohol and catalyst i.e. without intervening extraction of the vegetable oil. This process has the potential to reduce cost by removing the need for capital and running cost-intensive steps such as oil extraction of seeds. Reaction parameters such as seed size (>2 mm to o<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-ansi-language:="" en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="">C) and rate of mixing (250-550 rpm) were studied. The maximum 98.5% conversion to biodiesel was achieved at: seed size (<1 mm), seed/solvent ratio (wt/wt) (1:4), rate of mixing (550 rpm) at 60 <span style="font-size:5.5pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-ansi-language:="" en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-in;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="">oC for 1 hr with 0.1 M catalyst (KOH) concentration, meeting International (ASTM) as well as National (BIS) specifications.