Browsing by Author "Olaoye, Joshua Olanrewaju"

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    BIODIESEL PRODUCTION FROM CASTOR BEAN SEED: AN OPTIMIZATION PROCESS USING RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY
    (Valahia University Press, Targoviste, Romania., 2017) Olaoye, Joshua Olanrewaju; Busari Rasheed Amao
    Castor plant grows naturally in the wild over a wide range of geographical regions in Nigeria and it has an oilseed which has no much use. Production of biodiesel from this oil bearing plant offers potential of converting this waste seed that contain between 35 to 55 % of oil to useful product that is environmental friendly. In this study, the effects of process variables such as reaction time and reaction temperature on the transesterification of the castor oil to biodiesel were investigated. Methanol with potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a homogenous catalyst was used for the transesterification process at a different reaction temperature of 500C, 550C, 600C, 650C and 700C while reaction time was varied from 0.5 to 2.5 hours and the corresponding volume of the biodiesel produced were recorded for each of the variations. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) results of the Response Surface Methodology showed that the quadratic coefficients were significant (p = 0.05). The R2 and R2 adj. value of 0.9594 and 0.9304 respectively indicated that the regression model was a good one and verification experiment confirmed the validity of the predicted model. The experimental results suggested the optimal condition of 65 °C and 1.87hours; reaction temperature and time respectively to achieve a maximum biodiesel yield of 96.2%. In addition the fuel properties of the biodiesel produced which include; specific gravity, density, kinematic viscosity, pH, ash content, carbon content, acid value, flash point, fire point and calorific value were investigated and compared with the standards.