FACTOR AFFECTING THE PREPARATION OF BIODIESEL FROM SORGHUM OIL

Biodiesel has been gaining worldwide popularity as an alternative energy source because it is non toxic, biodegradable, non flammable and environmental friendly fuel. These biodiesel can be prepared from edible and non-edible oils by transesterification with methanol or ethanol. The transesterification can be carried out chemically or enzymatically. In the present work the factor affecting the preparation of biodiesel from crude sorghum oil. In addition, the optimum condition for producing biodiesel using sodium hydroxide as the catalyst in batch reactor is provided. The optimization was carried out based on variables namely, mass ratio of ethanol to oil, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature and reaction time. Using at 2 4 factorial experimental designs, four variables were studied at both high and low levels. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) and gas chromatography (GC) was used to analyze the purity of biodiesel. The production yield and purity of biodiesel were used to verify the optimization. Results suggested that the catalyst concentration was the most important factor affecting the ethyl ester yield. Room temperature was considered to be the optimum temperature for the preparation of biodiesel from crude sorghum oil with 1% sodium hydroxide catalyst, 1:3 mass ratio of ethanol to oil, 120 minutes reaction time which gave 91.00% production yield and 98.29% biodiesel concentration . Keyword: Biodiesel; Transesterification; Sorghum oil; environmentally friendly fuel.