CHAPTER ONE

INTRTODUCTION

1.0 Background

Energy consumption can be said to be a fundamental need in human existence (Refaat, Attia et al.
2008). The modern world relies on petroleum and its products as a major source of energy for day
to day activities. It has been estimated that around 90% of the energy utilized from petroleum is
used for transportation, heat and electricity generation while the remaining percentage used as feed
in the chemical industry (Carlsson, 2009), but due to the awareness of the potential unavailability
of crude oil in the future and the environmental problems associated with its consumption the
search for alternative sources of energy has been a crucial task for mankind to solve.
Nearly a decade ago published data from 29 major oil producing countries reported to have
experienced a decline in oil reserves Recently published data also revealed that a total of 29 major
world oil producing countries were already experiencing a decline in oil reserves (EIA, 2007;
Alamu et al., 2007a). An increase in human population has led to increased energy consumption,
hence the research on alternative renewable sources (Bhatti et al., 2008).

It has been observed that in diesel engines, edible oils can be used as fuels (Gupta et al., 2007;
Math, 2007). However, it was observed to be ineffective in energy utilization and caused problems
to the engines due to their high viscosity, inefficient combustion, poor atomization and other
problems associated with its use in its direct use (Bari et al., 2002; Saravanan et al., 2007). The
high viscosity of the vegetable oils can be reduced by transesterification of the oil to produce
biodiesel.

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel consisting of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) derived through
transesterification of vegetable oil and animal fat by reacting it with methanol in the presence of a
catalyst. It is also known as green fuel because of its several advantages some being; it is safe,
non-toxic and biodegradable unlike its petroleum counterpart. It is free of aromatics and sulfur
making it a cleaner combusting fuel with little SO2 and carbon monoxide, unburnt hydrocarbons
and small particulate matter (Chai et al. 2007). Biodiesel exhibits similar characteristics with
petroleum diesel as pertaining to its physical properties and function hence it can be used as a
100% replacement for petroleum diesel or as a blend mixed in certain proportions without being
required to modify the engine (Adebayo et. al., 2011; Fukuda et. al., 2001, Giakoumis, 2013).
Palm kernel oil as a feedstock for biodiesel production would be very good for Nigeria as the oil
palm tree which grows excellently on the Nigerian soil in abundance hence it would be still useful
in biodiesel production without leading to a fuel versus food crisis (Ojolo et. al., 2012).

there are a number of unique qualities and properties of biodiesel fuel that determine the
performance of biodiesel as energy source. Some of these properties include flashpoint, pour point,
iodine value, cetane number, density, viscosity and heating value (Ranganathan et. al., 2008;
Sharma et. al., 2008).

Biodiesel is commonly produced by the transesterification of triglycerides with methanol using

homogeneous alkaline catalysts such as NaOH and KOH (Ma and Hanna, 1999; Pinto et al., 2005;
Lotero et al., 2005.); however, production costs are rather high as not only a number of washing
and purification steps need to be performed to meet quality requirements but also due to the
equipment corrosion caused by acid and alkaline conditions (Canakci, 2007; Granados et al., 2007;
Ji et al., 2006; Karmee and Chadha, 2005). Although homogeneous base processes are relatively
fast and show high conversions (Semwal et al., 2011), the generation of wastewater is an
environmental concern and it is difficult to remove the catalysts from the reaction mixture.

As heterogeneously catalyzed processes generally do not generate large amounts of wastewater

and are easy to separate from reaction mixtures, they could prove more environmentally friendly
than homogeneous catalysts (Semwal et al., 2011; Martino et al., 2008). Particularly, solid base
catalysts can allow the production of high quality glycerol as by-production (Bournay et al., 2005).
Metal oxides (Yan et al., 2010; Furutaa et al., 2006) have been explored as heterogeneous catalysts
for triglyceride transesterification. CaO has also, been investigated and was found to exhibit high
activity. For example, Kawashima et al. (2008) found that with calcium oxide as catalyst a 90% of
biodiesel yield could be achieved in the transesterification of rapeseed oil with refluxing methanol
within 3 h. Reddy et al. (2006) reported that nanocrystalline CaO showed high catalytic activity
(99% conversion) in the transesterification reaction of poultry fat and soybean oil at room
temperature. Some research has shown that soluble substance leached fromCaO during
transesterification. Gryglewicz (1999) reported that CaO dissolved slightly in methanol and
formed a suspension in the reaction mixture. The separation of CaO from biodiesel after the
reaction is very difficult due to gel formation in the lower glycerol layer (Guo et al., 2007; Jiang
et al., 2006; Yan et al., 2007). Therefore, it is critical to develop a solid catalyst that not only
possesses exceptional catalytic activity and high stability, but is also easily separable from the
biodiesel product. Wang et al., 2012 synthesized.

1.1 Aim and Objectives

The aim of this project is to produce biodiesel from palm kernel oil using calcium oxide derived
from turkey bones as a solid catalyst.

Objectives include the following:

Transesterification of palm kernel Oil.

To study the effects of reaction temperature on the transesterification reaction.

To study the effects of reaction time on the transesterification reaction.

To study the effects of catalyst concentration on the transesterification reaction.

To study the effects of calcination temperature on the biodiesel yield.

To study the effects of calcination time on the biodiesel yield.

To study the Chemical Kinetics of the transesterification reaction.

Determination of the biodiesel properties.

1.2 Significance of the Study
The study of biodiesel can be beneficial to students in both the secondary and university, it can
also be beneficial to entrepreneurs and the government to find new substitutes for the limited non-
renewable sources of energy we currently rely on in society for greener path for energy utilization.

1.3 Scope and Limitations

The scope of this paper only focuses on a lab-scale production of biodiesel from palm kernel oil.
though acids could be used as a catalyst in the transesterification reaction only heterogenous base
catalyzed transesterification method is investigated in this paper.

1.4 Definition of Terms

1.5 Organization of the Report

Due to the awareness of the potential unavailability of crude oil in the future and the environmental
problems associated with its consumption the search for alternative sources of energy has been a
crucial task for mankind to solve