(63a) A Kinetic Study of the Production of Biodiesel From Algae

During a time of foreign fuel dependency and high green house gas emissions, it is imperative for the US to develop a biofuel that can alleviate economic and environmental pressures. Biodiesel, a fuel made from plant and animal oils, uses domestic feedstock for production and recycles CO¬2 previously released during combustion. Currently biodiesel is produced from food oils using homogenous base catalysts in a batch reaction process. The creation of significant byproducts, the displacement of a food source, and the batch nature of this process make biodiesel an expensive fuel alternative. The objective of this project is to identify and test pure metal and metal oxide catalysts in order to develop a heterogeneous, continuous flow process. Algae was also investigated as a possible feedstock since its use in production would not displace food sources or arable land. It was found that algae and other vegetable oils can be successfully converted to biodiesel using these metal and metal oxides at low temperatures. Use of the novel catalysts did not create unwanted byproducts that require purification. Successful catalysts also create biodiesel at low temperatures for a variety of vegetable oils containing traditional impurities such as free fatty acids.