Local bio-fuel producer replaces fossil fuel with castor oil
Soweto-born Thabang Mabapa who uses science to extract oil from castor oil seeds says that his project has the ability to replace fossil fuel and help to save South Africa’s energy crisis. Mabapa registered his own company, Selokong Sa Dimelana (SSD) … Continue reading
New Catalyst for Biodiesel Production from Castor Oil
Scientists from Brazil performed an experiment to optimize and investigate the biodiesel production from castor oil using microwave-assisted hybrid transesterfication process under various conditions such as microwave power, treatment time, ethanol:oil ratio and catalyst concentration (KOH). Results showed that under … Continue reading
Earth Gen-Biofuel Promotes Use of Castor Bean Oil as a Biofuel Feedstock
Earth Gen-BioFuel has planned to promote the use of castor bean oil in the manufacture of biodiesel. It has planned to sponsor two international castor bean industry symposiums. The first symposium will be in the United States and the second … Continue reading
Stable Polyanhydride Synthesized from Sebacic Acid & Ricinoleic Acid
Polyanhydrides are a class of biodegradable polymers that are usually unstable and prone to hydrolytic degradation and depolymerisation. They need to be stored at -20°C, packed under inert atmosphere until use. Now researchers from Israel have found a new stable … Continue reading
New Method for Production of Castor Oil Biodiesel
Researchers have performed a new method to produce biodiesel from castor oil. Transesterification of castor oil was performed using coconut oil as a co-reactant and MgO/SiO2 as heterogenous base catalyst. The catalyst was prepared from rice husk silica and magnesium … Continue reading
New Catalyst for Castor Oil Biodiesel Production
Recent study finds ferromagnetic zinc oxide nanocomposite as a suitable heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production from castor oil. The conventional method to produce biodiesel is basic transesterification using a homogeneous catalyst. But this process requires steps of neutralization and washing … Continue reading
New Source of Biodiesel with Less Viscosity from Castor Oil
Recent study has found a new source of biodiesel from castor oil which has less viscosity than the original castor oil. Castor oil cannot be used as such for biodiesel production due to its high viscosity. Hence scientists from Singapore … Continue reading
Kinetic Modelling of Enzymatic Biodiesel Production from Castor Oil: Temperature Dependence of the Ping Pong Parameters
Scientists performed an experiment to understand the kinetics of transesterification of castor oil using Novozym 235. The genetic algorithm was employed for estimation of kinetic parameters in the Ping Pong kinetic model for different temperatures. Results showed that an acceptable … Continue reading
Evaluation of Eleven Genotypes of Castor Oil Plant (Ricinus communis L.) for the Production of Biodiesel
Scientists from Mexico conducted an experiment to evaluate the seed and oil production, yield and quality of biodiesel produced from eleven wild genotypes of castor oil plant in Mexico. Seed and oil production was evaluated in experimental plots at field … Continue reading
Iranian Engineers Develop Bio Refinery for Castor without Need for Fossil-Based Methanol
Scientists from Iran have developed a new method to produce biodiesel from castor oil without using extra petrochemical methanol. The new method uses bio refinery setup where bioethanol is used instead of fossil-based methanol to produce biodiesel. Results showed that … Continue reading
Experimental Investigation of Castor Oil as an Alternative Fuel for Biodiesel
Researchers from Malaysia performed an experiment to analyse the efficiency of biodiesel conversion from crude castor oil to castor oil biodiesel. Acid-base catalysed transesterification reaction was carried out under different reaction conditions to obtain high yield of castor biodiesel. Diesel … Continue reading
Optimization of Biodiesel Ultrasound-Assisted Synthesis from Castor Oil using Response Surface Methodology (RSM)
Scientists from Iran performed an experiment to optimize the ultrasound assisted biodiesel synthesis from castor oil using response surface methodology. Parameters such as reaction time, methanol to oil molar ratio, ultrasonic cycle and ultrasonic amplitude were taken into consideration to … Continue reading
Synthesis of Biodiesel from Castor Oil: Silent versus Sonicated Methylation and Energy Studies
Researchers from Spain conducted an experiment to compare conventional and ultrasound-assisted transesterification for the production of biodiesel from castoroil. The results showed that sonicated transesterification leads to higher castoroil methyl ester yield. The energy required along each type of transesterification … Continue reading
Water- Containing Castor Oil/ Diesel Microemulsion- A Potential Green Fuel
Microemulsion technique is employed to reduce the viscosity of vegetable oils, which is used as the source of renewable fuels. A recent study is conducted by Ren zhu et al., on the phase behavior of microemulsion and the solubilization mechanism … Continue reading
Characterization of Blend Properties of Castor Biodiesel and Bioethanol
Some important properties of biodiesel such as viscosity, melting point, thermal stability, and cetane index can be directly related to the chemical composition of the biomass source used. However, the viscosity of castor oil ethyl ester (COEE) is about four … Continue reading