Jatropha Biodiesel

This study aims to (1) convert agricultural waste to biochar through pyrolysis, (2) examine its physiochemical characteristics, and (3) investigate its potential role as fuel and catalyst in energy recovery technologies. The produced biochars at 250, 350, and 450 °C showed a wide range of mineralogical composition, high porosity, and thermal stability, and alkaline pH that make biochar suitable for improving the processes of energy recovery technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD), transesterification and pyrolysis. The alkaline pH of biochars can neutralize the acidic condition and increase the digestibility of the feedstock in AD process for enhanced methane (CH4) production. Biochar favors the transesterification process for biodiesel production due to products separation and high stability under basic and acidic conditions. In pyrolysis process, biochar can act as a catalyst to increase the degradation rates of plastic or biomass wastes or can be used as an adsorbent material during the post-treatment to improve the quality of the liquid oil. The high heating values (HHV) of biochars produced at 250, 350 and 450 °C were 24, 23.64 and 23.08 MJ kg-1. This characteristic of biochar along with the high tendency of slagging indicate that biochar could be used itself as a source of energy. Biochar can also act as a promising low-cost adsorbent for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) due to its highly porous structure and sorptive capacity and subsequently the conversion of absorbed CO2 to fuel. Research is yet required on the application of biochar in pyrolysis and capturing and catalyzing the conversion reactions of CO2 to fuels.

The increasing concerns over diminishing fossil fuel supplies and rising oil prices, as well as adverse environmental and human health impacts from the use of such fuels have led to the need of finding alternative fuels that will reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. Biodiesel from plant and animal oils sources, has been identified as such an alternative fuel. However, the major obstacle in the production and commercialization of biodiesel is the production cost. This high cost is mainly attributed to the cost of using edible vegetable oil as feedstock. There is a need to obtain biodiesel without compromising food security. In this paper, an alkali catalyzed continuous transesterification process with a capacity of 8000 tonnes/year of biodiesel from jatropha curcas seed oil was designed and simulated in HYSYS. Laboratory data was used for the simulation and the process was able to produce biodiesel of high purity (over 99.65%) and by-product glycerine with the purity grade of 95.3%.

AbstrACt Jatropha curcas L. has been identified for biofuel production but it presents limited commercial yields due to limited branching and a lack of yield uniformity. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of single application of ethephon or a combination of 6-benzyladenine (BA) with gibberellic acid isomers A 4 and A 7 (GA 4+7) on branch induction, flowering and fruit production in jatropha plants with and without leaves. Plants with and without leaves showed differences for growth and reproductive variables. For all variables except inflorescence set, there were no significant statistical interactions between the presence of leaves and plant growth regulators concentration. The total number of flowers per inflorescence was reduced as ethephon concentration was increased. As BA + GA 4 +7 concentration increased, seed dry weight increased. Thus, ethephon and BA + GA 4 +7 applications appeared to affect flowering and seed production to a greater extent than branching. The inability to discern significant treatment effects for most variables might have been due to the large variability within plant populations studied and thus resulting in an insufficient sample size. Therefore, data collected from this study were used for statistical estimations of sample sizes to provide a reference for future studies.

Background: Transesterification catalyzed by solid base catalyst is a brilliant technology for the noble process featuring the fast reaction under mild reacting condition in biodiesel production. Heterogeneous base catalysts are generally more reactive than solid acid catalysts which require extreme operating condition for high conversion and biodiesel yield. In the present study, synthesis of biodiesel was studied by using edible (palm) or non-edible (Jatropha) feedstock catalyzed by heterogeneous base catalysts such as supported alkali metal (NaOH/Al 2 O 3), alkaline-earth metal oxide (MgO, CaO and SrO) and mixed metal oxides catalysts (CaMgO and CaZnO).

District heating networks are commonly addressed in the literature as one of the most effective solutions for decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through the heat sales. Due to the changed climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease, prolonging the investment return period. The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand forecast. The district of Alvalade, located in Lisbon (Portugal), was used as a case study. The district is consisted of 665 buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors. The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications (the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered). The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations. Abstract The fossil fuels accomplish almost 80% of the world energy needs. The ever increasing exploitation of fossil fuels has led to environmental pollution, global climate change and health problems to living beings. Hence to meet the needs of the future energy and to mitigate the environmental pollution, it is critical to look for the alternate fuels. Global energy infrastructure in the future is believed to be accomplished by the energy generated from the low-cost renewable resources. Algae biomass has emerged as a promising biofuel source, as microalgae-based biofuels are biodegradable, renewable, and eco-friendly in comparison to fossil driven fuels. This study aims to examine the importance of microalgae as an alternative renewable energy source and evaluate the key challenges in the production of microalgae biofuel.

En el trópico de Quintana Roo, al igual que en el resto del país, enormes superficies de tierra han sido utilizadas como minas a cielo abierto de las cuales se extrae materiales pétreos que se utilizan en rellenos y revestimientos de carreteras y caminos.  Una vez cumplido su ciclo productivo, es frecuente que en estos sitios las empresas mineras incumplan la legislación que establece la restauración del medio ambiente.  Desde la perspectiva del desarrollo integral, las ex minas representan el sitio ideal para producir higuerilla utilizable en la pequeña empresa de generación de bioetanol y biodiesel.  Pero, para ello, se requiere contar con cimientos que contengan información sólida, tecnologías desarrolladas a la escala adecuada y métodos para producir los elementos cognoscitivos en el campo de las ciencias jurídico-sociales y económico-administrativas.  A satisfacer estos requerimientos se orienta la presente propuesta, en una de sus lineas.

This study investigated the distribution and properties content of Jatropha curcas seeds and castor bean from Maiduguri, Ogbomosho and Ringim, Nigeria using standard analytical methods and field observation. The plants are available in 18 states of Nigeria and Proximate composition results show Borno Sample for Jatropha (B.S); moisture (5.8%), crude fat (8.5%), crude fiber (25%), crude protein (22.98%), ash content (2%), carbohydrate (44.22%) and phosphorus (0.02%). Jigawa Sample for Jatropha (J.S); moisture (5.8%), crude fat (9.5%), crude fiber (26%), crude protein (20.35%), ash content (1%), carbohydrate (48.15%) and phosphorus (0.1%). Ogbomosho Sample for Castor bean (C.O); moisture (5.9%), crude fat (14.5%), crude fiber (25%), crude protein (18.38%), ash content (2%), carbohydrate (48.72%) and phosphorus (0.03%). The seeds are rich in carbohydrate and crude fiber. Therefore, time, climate and human activity  the oil content of Jatropha and castor seeds by 70.5 to 82.6%. while a significant increase in carbohydrate content which makes it suitable for feedstock production when detoxified.

Keywords: Jatropha Curcas, Castor Seeds, Seeds Quality, Spatial Distribution, Bio-fuel, Feedstock

With increasingly stricter legislations worldwide and shrinking reserves of fossil fuels, biodiesel has emerged out as one of the most promising alternative fuel for diesel engines. However, one major drawback of biodiesel is that it produces higher NOx emissions than mineral diesel although the soot emissions are comparatively lower due to its different combustion characteristics. In the present work, Jatropha biodiesel has been proposed as an alternative fuel for powering existing diesel engine. Transesterification has been carried out for effective utilization of Jatropha oil. Thermal efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption(BSFC),smoke opacity, exhaust gas temperature(EGT),brake mean effective pressure(BMEP) have been measured for Jatropha oil. A comparable study is carried out on the basis of different performance curves, which are plotted for each proportion between thermal efficiency versus brake mean effective pressure(BMEP), smoke opacity versus brake mean effective pressure(BMEP) and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) versus brake mean effective pressure(BMEP). Transesterification process is a very effective process for reducing high viscosity of vegetable oils and bringing about changes at molecular level. Vegetable oils do not exhibit combustion related problems and the transesterification process produces a Bio-origin fuel that behaves almost like mineral diesel oil.

The planet is dying due to so many human activities that are harmful to our environment, such as cutting down trees without growing new ones, carbon emissions through the use of combustion engines and burning firewood etc. As such, these anthropogenic activities pollute our environment and compromising human sustainability. These harmful activities were carried-out either deliberate or unknown to people in search of energy, survival and luxuries of life. Therefore, there is strong need to find sustainable source of energy that is renewable and environmentally friendly for continual existence of man on this planet. Biodiesel can be extracted from Jatropha Curcas L, which serve as a source of renewable energy. In this paper; the awareness, processing method, economic and medicinal benefits of Jatropha Curcas in Nigeria was discussed. The paper gives priority to three different studies, with addition of regression analysis. The research concluded that there is high rate of awareness of Jatropha Curcas plant, mainly used in live fencing, homestead fencing and farm boundaries mainly in Kano state, Nigeria; though, most of the farmers were not aware of its benefits such as biodiesel oil, medicinal uses, anti-desertification features, soap making among many others, but they are willing to produce the biodiesel from it. The research also recommends awareness campaign and government incentives in the cultivation, production and marketing the biodiesel in Nigeria.

This study investigates the production of biodiesel from non-edible crude jatropha oil in the presence of
an immobilized lipase catalyst. A modified method was used to immobilize Rhizopus oryzae lipase in the
polyvinyl alcohol–alginate matrix. Response surface methodology (RSM) and artificial neural network
(ANN) were employed to evaluate the relationship between process variables and biodiesel yield and
predict the optimal reaction conditions. The determination coefficient values for RSM and ANN were 0.98
and 0.97, respectively, indicating that both models can accurately predict the experimental results. The
experimental results revealed that the highest biodiesel yield was 87.10% at 40 8C reaction temperature,
5:1 methanol/oil molar ratio, 70 wt% water content, and 17 h reaction time. The immobilized lipase-
catalyst beads exhibited good activity for biodiesel production, as indicated by the major properties that
complied with the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) international D6751 standard.