Production of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil

In the present project technological and economical aspects of biodiesel was studied, in first part of project bio diesel was synthesized from Waste vegetable Oil (WVO) by three-step method and regressive analyzes of the process was done. The raw oil was collected from local restaurant of Barcelona city in Spain. In the three-step method, the first step is saponification of the oil followed by acidification to produce FFA and finally esterification of FFA to produce biodiesel. In the saponification reaction, various reaction parameters such as oil to sodium hydroxide molar ratio and reaction time were optimized and the oil to NaOH molar ratio was 1:2, In the esterification reaction, the reaction parameters such as methanol to FFA molar ratio, catalyst concentration and reaction temperature were optimized Finally HHV of biodiesel was measured and compared with biodiesel and petro-diesel standard. It was found almost equal to petro diesel produced by National Refinery of Pakistan i.e. 40000 KJ/Kg. In second part detailed market survey was done in restaurants in order to check the supply of raw material and need of the targeted market and then detailed economical analysis was also done in order to check the feasibility of the project in the target market in Pakistan. The market is not saturated and there is a need of the product but initial capital investment found is higher and investors will have to wait for the revenues.QC 20201118