A comparison of conventional and in situ methods of transesterification of seed oil from a series of sunflower cultivars

The cost of vegetable oil monoesters represents one of the major restrictions on their use as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. This cost can be reduced by increasing the yield of esters produced from a given quantity of oilseed. Transesterification of sunflowerseed oil in situ with acidified methanol has been shown to produce fatty acid methyl esters in yields significantly greater than those obtained from conventional reaction with pre‐extracted seed oil. Yield improvements of over 20% were achieved and could be related to the moisture content of the seed. Fatty ester compositions and cloud points of the products from the in situ reactions were virtually identical to those of esters produced using conventional techniques.