The Production and Analysis of Biodiesel from Waste Chicken Skin and Pork Skin Fat and a Comparision of Fuel Properties to Petroleum Derived Diesel Fuel

People today are increasingly health conscious and therefore shopkeepers tend to dispose of fatty chicken and pork skin. Chicken and pork skins thus are sources of solid waste that are usually not utilized. This paper deals with the production of useful biodiesel from utilizing the waste chicken and pork skins. Fat from the waste chicken and pork skins (sourced from local shops), was first extracted and subjected to transesterification. The products of transesterification were FAME (Fatty acid methyl esters) and glycerol. The FAME produced was tested for five parameters namely calorific value, pour point and cloud point when compared to ASTM E2515-11 standard values. Comparison of the obtained values of the five parameters with the standard values for diesel was performed to determine the viability of the biodiesel produced. The results of this experiment showed that the calorific values of FAME produced from chicken skin and pork skin fat were close to that of petroleum derived diesel. However, two test parameters namely kinematic viscosity and pour point differed when compared to diesel; this problem can be circumvented by modifying an automobile‟s internal combustion engine. Due to the relatively high yield value of biodiesel, it is feasible to utilize chicken skin and pork skin fat at a rural level to produce FAME that can be an alternative to diesel in this time of acute fuel scarcity.