DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SUSTAINABLE ACYL ACCEPTOR FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION FROM PFAD

Executive Summary of Research Proposal (PY/2014/02061)

Biodiesel is a clean burning fuel produced from renewable domestic sources such as vegetable oils and animal grease. It is biodegradable, non-inflammable,
non-toxic and has a favorable combustion–emission profile, producing much less carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and unburned hydrocarbons than
petroleum-based diesel. The production of first generation biodiesel has grown tremendously over the past decade. InMalaysia’s context, the government has
encouraged the production of biodiesel by providing numerous incentives. In 2006, 60 biodiesel manufacturing licenses were approved. Unfortunately, almost all
biodiesel plants utilizing vegetable oil as feedstock were later forced to shut down their operation due to the sudden increasing price of vegetable oil. As a result,
substantial number of biodiesel plants were left idle, some even sold as scrap metal. Such scenario could be overcome by utilizing a cheaper and sustainable
feedstock. Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) could be the answer to a commercially viable biodiesel production. Hence, production of fatty acid ester (FAE) from
PFAD containing high free fatty acids (FFA) was investigated in this work. Batch esterifications of PFAD were carried out to study the influence of reaction
temperatures of 70–100 °C, molar ratios of sustainable acyl acceptors to PFAD of 0.4:1–12:1, quantity of catalysts of 0–5.50% (wt of catalyst/wt of PFAD) and
reaction times of 15–240 min. Optimum conditions, reaction kinetics and mass transfer activities will be investigated. It is expected that the amount of FFA to
reduced from more than 90% to below 5% at the end of the esterification process. FAE will be further purified with alkaline medium and the final biodiesel product
will be tested in accordance to quality standard ASTM D6751-02.