Production and testing of biodiesel methyl ester fuels from Nigerian tropical seed oil feedstocks

The urgent need for alternative energy, climate change mitigation and environmental protection in the world today cannot be over-emphasized. Researchers are at top gear in search of non-edible energy crops. The huge environmental benefits of renewable energy notwithstanding, new discoveries in this area arise every day. The potentials of selected tropical seed-oils for biodiesel production and utilization as fuels were therefore explored and subsequently produced. The seed-oils studied include: Sand box tree, fluted pumpkin seed and wild melon seeds. Oils of these seeds were extracted, optimized, synthesized and characterized as biodiesel fuels by transesterification process using different alcohol/oil ratios of (4:1 and 6:1) and catalysts types (NaOH and KOH) at optimization temperatures of 38°C and 55°C and reaction time of 5 mins and 30 mins respectively. Optimized biodiesel produced were investigated for their chemo-physical properties in conformity with ASTM standards of biodiesel. Results showed that sandbox tree seeds, wild melon seeds and pumpkin seeds have high percentage oil content (69.32%; 70.24% and 46.88%) respectively. They also hold great potentials as feedstock for biodiesel production. The chemo-physical properties and their biodiesel fuels and blends with automotive gas oil (AGO) fell within specification. Pumpkin seed oil however showed highest average percentage optimized yield of biodiesel (97%) in (1 wt of oil), NaOH catalyst, and alcohol to oil ratio of 6:1 at a reaction temperature of 55°C. Under the giving conditions, biodiesel fuels and blends were successfully produced from the selected feedstock with properties very close to those AGO. They can therefore be commercialized for large scale utilization as biodiesel fuels or as blends for the replacement of environmentally unfriendly fossil fuels.