Methanolysis of Waste Cooking Oil (WCO) and Parametric Optimization

In this study the transesterification reaction is particularly slow due to the oil is sparingly soluble in lower alcohol. However, the slow reaction rate in transesterification reaction can be speed up by using reaction rate increasing technique such as microwave pre-treatment of oil. Waste Cooking Oil (WCO) has been chosen as non-edible oil feedstock for this project. WCO is chosen as it can reduce the cost of production of biodiesel and it is also environmentally beneficial from a waste management viewpoint, since it provides a cleaner way for disposing these products. However, when using waste cooking oil as feedstock, it will affect the transesterification reaction and the biodiesel properties due to foreign substance in the oil formed during frying. In order to design suitable transesterification reaction condition, chemical and physical properties of waste cooking oil has been determined. The interaction and individual effects of transesterification reaction parameter has been study using design of experiment (DOE) software’s by using central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM). The yield of biodiesel from transesterification of biodiesel pre-treated with microwave shows higher yield at 89.96% at 35 minute compared to 77.53% at 45 minute of transesterification without microwave pre-treatment. The results shows that microwave increase the reaction rate which give more yield in shorter time.