Soybean and Waste Cooking Oil Based Feedstocks as a Sustainable Biofuel

Fuel in transportation is necessary and gas release from transportation activity raises concern of pollution. Sustainable fuels sources are from biomass can convert to the alternative to the bioenergy fuel. It is actively investigated with concern in the environmental effects if using conventional fuels from reservoir of fossil fuels. Hence, to counter these consequences, Sustainable Fuels (SF) is investigated as it is considered a renewable source of fuel. Thus, this study aims to establish an experiment to determine the suitability of biomass fuel by using soybean and waste cooking oil feedstocks. An experiment is set up to produce biomass fuel by using feedstock from different biomass particularly from soybean oil, a first-generation edible feedstock and waste cooking oil, a second-generation nonedible feedstock. The method chosen to produce biomass fuel is transesterification. The experiment will test the effects of a catalyst, namely solid Potassium Hydroxide, KOH, with three levels of concentration 0.75%, 1%, and 1.5% w/w KOH. Once the biomass fuel is produced it will undergo a series of tests to study the effect of parameters such as density, kinematic viscosity, caloric value, acid value and Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME). The results show that using the feedstock 0.75 w/w% of KOH, the yield of biomass fuel is the most for both feedstocks. It is noted that soybean oil yields slightly greater feedstock than waste cooking oil. The density for both feedstock is very similar at 0.87-0.88 g/cm3. The acid value of biomass fuel produced from waste cooking oil is much higher than soybean oil at 0.28 but still under the acceptance range of 0.5. The concentration of catalyst used is a major factor in the yield of biomass fuel. It is also noted that the first-generation edible feedstock of soybean oil produces greater quality of biomass fuel. Nevertheless, first-generation feedstock still poses the food competition threat in comparison to second-generation feedstock. Therefore, establishment of the second-generation feedstock from waste cooking oil produces biomass fuel that is close to the quality of soybean oil, it is a more preferred feedstock compared to soybean oil.