Extraction of Oil from Hevea Brasiliensis by using Ethanol as Solvent

The search for alternatives to petroleum-based fuels has led to the development of fuels from various sources, including renewable feedstocks such as fats and oils. Presently, most of biodiesel is produced from the edible oil and the quantity of non-edible oil is high due to underutilized and abandoned. Non-edible oils are defined as the vegetable oils that have no use in food processing for human consumptions. Jatropha, rubber seed and pongemia pinnata oils are examples of non-edible oil sources. Rubber seeds contain considerable amount of oil that can be extracted. The non-edible oil remains underutilized being side products of rubber plantation. The seeds are abundant over the wide rubber plantation in Malaysia and the oil can be converted to alkyl esters which can be used as biodiesel. As standard procedure after cultivation, rubber seed or Hevea Brasiliensis must undergo the oil extraction and transesterification to produce biodiesel. Nowadays, mechanical extraction is being preferred for large scale production. However, the solvent extraction method recovers almost all the oils and leaves behind only 0.5% to 0.7% residual oil in the raw material while in the case of mechanical pressing, the residual oil left in the oil cake may be anywhere from 6% to 14%. The solvent extraction method can be applied directly to any low oil content raw materials. Ethanol has been chosen as the solvent for the extraction. Using ethanol will give advantages since it can be obtained from renewable, and agricultural cultivated sources. The extraction of oil with different parameters is studied in this project. Hopefully, this study will supports the production of biodiesel from rubber seed oil in Malaysia by using solvent extraction with ethanol as the solvent.