11. Biodiesel is not vegetable oil, but just made from a mixture of it and usually methanol. It is better for the environment because it is made from renewable resources and has lower emission compared to petroleum diesel. It is less toxic. It is available nationwide, but it can be purchased directly from the producers and marketers, distributors or public pumps everywhere. More About Biodiesel
12. Transesterification The process that involves reacting vegetable oil or animal fats with alcohol. Biodiesel production is the act of producing biofuel, or biodiesel, through transesterification. The process involves reacting vegetable oil or animal fat with alcohol (usually methanol or ethanol). Triglyceride + Alcohol Biodiesel + Glycerol
13. Catalytic Transesterification Heterogeneous Catalyst Process For example, CaO, MgO, BaO, ZnO, etc. -Solid, easy to separate, and reusable Homogeneous Catalysts -liquid and will react and mix in, harder to separate and purify
14. Procedures Scoop a few spoonful of Ca(OH)2 into a crucible. Step 1 Step 2 Put the crucible in an oven and heat it 1 hour, temperature 500 degrees Celsius While heating, the liquid from the catalyst evaporates, and the solid becomes dry.
15. After heating, the catalyst becomes hard, and crush it into fine powder. Step 3 CaO (calcium oxide)
16. Step 4 Oil bath Preheat 2 oil baths to around 80 degrees Celsius We need to speed up the reaction, so we need to heat them up. These 2 oil baths are preheated so that we are not wasting time.
17. Step 5 Take out 2 flasks, and add 10g of vegetable oil into both flasks. Heat both of them in the oil baths. Flask 10g of vegetable oil Remember to add a magnetic spinner into the flask
18. Step 6 Prepare 1g of Cao catalyst for each flask (, but do not add them in yet). Catalyst (CaO)
19. Add methanol into a beaker, and mix it with the prepared catalyst. (The amount of methanol is below… 4 experiments were conducted in 2 weeks, and the circled ones were what produced biodiesel. Step 7 Week 2 Experiment No1. 5ml of methanol No2. 10ml of methanol Week 1 Experiment No1. 7ml of methanol No2. 3ml of methanol
20. Step 8 Add the methanol and catalyst into the 2 oil baths and cap it. It has to react 1 hour at 60 degrees.
21. Step 9 After the reaction is done, filter it. Fold the filter paper, and prepare the funnel.
22. Step 10 After filtering, gather a small amount of biodiesel in a beaker to be examined.
23. If carefully looked at, there are 2 layers. The bottom layer is glycerol, which will be drained out, and the rest that will remain is the biodiesel.
24. Step 11 After a small amount of biodiesel is gotten, add a teaspoon of Na2SO4 into the beaker and mix it together, you should get a gooey substance. Microwave the beaker about 5 minutes to get rid of the water. NaSO4 that was mixed also gets rid of water, microwaving just helps get the excess ones out. Filter the gooey biodiesel mixture to get pure biodiesel.
25. After filtering the 2nd time, use 2 drops of biodiesel into a NMR tube. Add CDCl3 into the tube until 5 cm (don’t go over). Step 12
29. Conclusion Week 1 : Ratio of methanol to oil No.1 15:1 No.2 6:1 Week 2 : No.1 10:1 No.2 20:1 These two experiments worked. Too little methanol doesn’t produce enough biodiesel, and too much makes it excess, making it watery.
This is a hypothetical result that we used to compare our results to. There are 2 peaks that we have to find in order to plug the numbers into the equation at the side.
This is the result of the NMR. According to the results, we made 74.2 % biodiesel. We used the numbers of the 2 peaks to plug into the formulas. This one was for the first week. The second weeks one was 90% biodiesel.
![Materials Crucible+ spoon Oven Small pots x2 Bunsen burner Mortar and pestle Small jar (to put the catalyst) Double mouth round bottom flask x2 Vegetable oil Balance 0.01g precision CaOh2 (but after heated Cao) Graduated cylinder 20ml x2 Beakers x3 Methanol, 25ml ,[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)