Biodiesel was produced from non-edible neem seeds. Due to its high FFA content, a two step acid-basetransesterification approach was applied using H 2 SO 4 – NaOH. In the first approach (esterification), H 2 SO 4 was applied to reduce acid level to <1mgKOH/g while the followup step involved direct conversion to fatty acid methyl ester using 1% NaOH as catalyst. The results revealed optimum conditions of biodiesel at 1% NaOH catalyst amount, 60 o C reaction temperature, 1:6 oil to methanol molar ratio and 70 min reaction time for the two step acid – basetransesterification method. These optimum parameters produced a maximum biodiesel yield of 92.0%. The fuel properties of the biodiesel produced compared favorably with recommendations by the American Standard Testing Method (ASTM D6751), European Standard and Ghana Standard Authority
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Wahab et al. (2019) studied this question.