Biodiesel Production from Waste Frying Oil and

Determination of Its Cold Flow Properties

Ali Evcil a, Filiz Alshanableh b, Cemal Gövsa a, Mahmut A. Savaş c
aMechanical Engineering Department, Near East University, Lefkoşa, KKTC
b Engineering Faculty, Chemistry Service Department, Near East University, Lefkoşa, KKTC
c Mechanical Engineering Department, Boğaziçi University, Bebek, İstanbul, TÜRKİYE

ABSTRACT

The use of WFO (waste frying oil), instead of virgin oil, is an effective way of reducing the cost of raw
material in biodiesel production. Perhaps, a more important aspect is the environmental benefits.
Nevertheless, WFO is a lower quality raw material as compared to virgin vegetable oil. There are no major
associations that collect WFO regularly in TRNC (Turkish Republic of North Cyprus). The results of an
informal survey in prior to the experimental work revealed that a university cafeteria would be a major and a
kebab house would a minor source of WFO in Lefkoşa. The research reported here was a part of a more
general investigation on the production and characterization of biodiesel in the TRNC. WFO was obtained
from a cafeteria in the campus of Near East University and converted to biodiesel fuel via a
transesterification reaction. The cold flow properties, namely CP (cloud point), PP (pour point) and CFPP
(cold filter plugging point) were found as 15 °C, 11°C and 13 °C, respectively, following the current ASTM
and EN standards. All three temperatures were also determined for biodiesel - commercial diesel blends. As
a result of its cold flow characteristics, it appears that the pure biodiesel can be used from May to October in
Lefkoşa. Nevertheless, proper biodiesel - commercial diesel blends can be prepared for the winter season.

Key-words: biodiesel, waste frying oil, cloud point, pour point, cold filter plugging point, transesterification

1. INTRODUCTION residue and can be considered as a potential raw

Growth of population and increasing food
consumption have increased accumulation of
WFO (waste frying oil) from households,
restaurants, hotels, schools and industrial
sources. This is a growing problem not only in the
TRNC (Turkish Republic of North Cyprus) but
also all around the world. Being an island, the
situation appears to be more serious in Cyprus as
compared to the mainland. The WFO poured
down the sinks and drains, causes problems for
sewage treatment plants increasing the
depuration costs. The municipalities often collect
WFO from schools, restaurants, hotels and
industrial sources then, dump it into a waste
disposal area without sewage treatment. This
poses a detrimental environmental effect on soil,
rivers and sea, and eventually on the living
matter. An example of such a waste disposal area
in the north of Lefkoşa is located only a few
kilometers away from Near East University. The
municipalities and the government often have
been criticized in daily newspapers for not
keeping their words in improving waste treatment
(Eminoğlu 2010). In fact, WFO is a valuable
material for soap manufacturing, energy
production by means of anaerobic digestion,
thermal cracking and more recently for biodiesel
fuel production (Phan and Phan 2008, Sabudak
and Yıldız 2010, Araujo et al 2010, Zhang et al
2003, Encinar et al 2007, Maceiras et al 2009).
The European Parliament banned the use of
WFO in the manufacture of animal food in 2004.
The same ban has been in effect in Turkey since
2005. Hence, WFO can be utilized as a raw
material primarily in biodiesel production.
Biodiesel has been traditionally derived mainly
from virgin vegetable oil and thus is a renewable
fuel (Shahid and Jamal 2008, Öğüt and Oğuz
2006, Acaroğlu 2007, Uluengin 2007, Balat and
Balat 2008,Sharma et al 2007, Steinbach 2008).
The use of biodiesel is almost as old as the diesel
engine itself. Rudolf Diesel patented his engine in
1892 that could run on peanut oil (Shahid and
Jamal 2008). After 1940’s huge reservoirs of
petroleum were discovered and diesel fuel
produced from petroleum became cheaper than
biodiesel. Nevertheless, the situation has
changed recently. The petroleum reserves will last

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies

for a limited period of time. Biodiesel fuel from a
domestic source reduces the petroleum imports of
a country. It is a fuel also with lower exhaust
emissions. Carbon dioxide released by
combustion of biodiesel can be recycled by
photosynthesis which minimizes the green house
effect (Zhang et al 2003). Biodiesel has a flash
point (~150°C) higher than that of petroleum
diesel (~77°C) therefore, less volatile and safer to
transport. It has a lower volumetric heating value
but has a high cetane number. It provides
lubricating properties that reduces engine wear
and extend engine life.
The earliest diesel motors had large injectors
since they used viscous vegetable fuel. Then, due
to the low petroleum prices the engine technology
was adjusted to consume the low viscosity
petroleum diesel. The vegetable oil is demanded
again as in the early diesel engines, however,
their high viscosity is not suitable for the current
diesel vehicles. The high viscosity results in poor
atomization, incomplete combustion and carbon
deposition on the injector and the valve seats,
causing serious engine contamination (Sharma et
al 2007). Other drawbacks of the direct use of
vegetable oil include low volatility and
polyunsaturated character. Nevertheless, since
1970’s, a low viscosity biodiesel can be produced
by processing the vegetable oil using processes
like pyrolysis, micro-emulsification or
transesterification. In the transesterification (or
alcoholysis) reaction which is catalyzed by a
base, acid or enzyme, a virgin vegetable oil, WFO
or animal fat is reacted with an alcohol to yield
fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), i.e. biodiesel,
and a glycerol co-product which has a commercial
value. Among these options, the base catalyzed
transesterification (Encinar et al 2007, Steinbach
2007) is considered to be the most promising
route for lowering viscosity. During the
transesterification reaction, triacylglycerol reacts
with methanol allowing the three fatty acid chains
to be released from glycerol skeleton and
combine with alcohol to yield fatty acid methyl
esters and glycerol as shown in Figure 1.
At present, the main oilseeds used in extracting
vegetable oil are mostly sunflower and rapeseed
seeds in Turkey (Öğüt and Oğuz 2006) and
Greece (Panoutsou et al 2008), and soybean
seeds in US (Zhang et al 2003). The cost of
biodiesel produced from vegetable oil is about 1.5
times of the petroleum based diesel. Vegetable oil
makes-up about 75% of the total cost of biodiesel
production (Phan and Phan 2008, Öğüt and Oğuz
ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies
2006). The production of biodiesel from vegetable
oil has debated also due the use of fertile land to
crop oilseeds which reduces the land available for
food crops. The result is an increase in food
prices and making food scarce all around the
world. Hence, the use of WFO instead of virgin
vegetable oil is desirable to reduce not only the
raw material cost but also in terms of a number of
environmental issues. The cost of WFO is
estimated to be less than half the price of virgin oil
(Encinar et al 2007), e.g. reported as US$ 0.22
per liter in Brasil (Araujo et al 2010) and is still
free in TRNC. In addition, the utilization of WFO
reduces the environmental pollution. On the other
side, WFO has properties different from those of
petroleum products and virgin vegetable oil. The
high temperatures of cooking procedures and the
water from the foods rapidly hydrolyze the
triglycerides and increase the free fatty acid
content in the oil. Other drawbacks such as the
stability of mixtures, variations in viscosity, iodine
value, density, optimization of methanol
consumption have to be taken into consideration.
WFO is a lower quality raw material as compared
to virgin vegetable oil in biodiesel production.
Moreover, the undesirable free fatty acid (FFA)
content increases with the frying time.
The major biodiesel standards which serve as a
reference for other standards are EN 14213:2003
(Heating Fuels) and EN 14214:2003 (Automotive
Fuels) or ASTM D6751-09. The tendency of a
diesel fuel to gel or solidify at low temperatures is
well known. Biodiesel starts to gel at higher
temperatures than diesel fuel and its cold flow
characteristics are very poor. Determination of the
flow characteristics and its improvement is a
major challenge. There are three important
parameters for low temperature characteristics of
biodiesel fuel, namely, CP (cloud point), PP (pour
point) and CFPP (cold filter plugging point). The
CP is the temperature at which cloud of wax
crystals first becomes visible when fuel is cooled
under conditions described by ASTM D2500-09 or
ISO 3015:1992. More sophisticated procedures
have been published for cloud point measurement
in recent ASTM D3117-03, ASTM D5771-05,
ASTM D5772-05 and ASTM D5773-07 standards.
However, these are not essential in ASTM D6751,
yet. The PP is the temperature at which the
amount of wax crystallizes is sufficient to gel the
fuel, thus it is the lowest temperature at which fuel
can flow. The sample must be cooled following
the procedure described either in ASTM D97-05
or ISO 3016:1994. The CFPP is described in
ASTM D6371-05 and EN 116:1998 and directly
affects the diesel engine performance in winter. It
determines the lowest temperature where 20 ml
of fuel can be drawn through a 45 micron screen
in 60 seconds with 200 mm of water (1.96 kPa)
vacuum. The CP is the highest temperature used
for characterizing cold flow and the PP is the
lowest. The CFPP is usually between the cloud
and pour points. The cloud point is a must in
ASTM D6751 standard; pour and filter plugging
points rather than the cloud point are listed in EN
14213 and EN 14214 standards.
Although it is a valuable waste and a major raw
material for biodiesel production, there are no
major organizations either, private (Araujo et al
2010) or state (Uluengin 2007) that collect WFO
in

Figure 1: A Schematic representation of the transesterification of triacylglycerol with methanol to yield FAME
(biodiesel fuel) and glycerol.

TRNC. The results of an informal survey, given in

Figure 2, in prior to the experimental work
revealed that the cafeterias in our university can
be a major source of WFO. The smallest amount
of WFO is accumulated in the kebab houses. It
can be estimated that 700 liters of WFO per week
corresponds to about 850 liters of virgin vegetable
oil per week before frying. Virgin sunflower oil is
imported from abroad and frequently used as
frying oil in the TRNC.
800
700
600
WFO (lt/week)
2. EXPERIMENTAL WORK
2.1 BIODISEL PRODUCTION FROM WFO
The design of a biodiesel production installation
can be based on its capacity (Öğüt and Oğuz
2006, Uluengin 2007). A large commercial scale
installation is designed to produce between 200 -
1000 liters of biodiesel per hour. A medium scale
installation is capable of producing about 100
liters of biodiesel per hour. The experimental set-
up used in the current work was actually a hobby
type installation for brewing our own biodiesel. A
flow chart of the experimental procedures
followed (Shnaikat et al 2010) is shown in Figure
3.

500

400

300

200

100

0
University Restaurant Hotel Fast Food Kebab
House

Figure 2: Average accumulation of WFO in liters

per week for each type of establishment.

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies


Collection of WFO
Filtering
Water removing
Determination of FFA
content
Transesterification
Separation
Crude Biodiesel Crude Glycerol
Purification
Biodiesel
Test for Cold Flow
Properties
Figure 3: Flow chart of the experimental
procedures followed in current survey.
In the current study, biodiesel was produced from
WFO by means of base-catalyzed one-step
transesterification reaction. Properties featured by
WFO differ from those of refined and crude oils.
The presence of heat and water accelerates the
hydrolysis of tri-glycerides and increases the free
fatty acid (FFA) content. FFA and water contents
effect the transesterification of glycerides with
alcohols. They also interfere with the separation
of fatty acid esters and glycerol. Thus, tri-
glycerides containing high amounts of water and
FFA are not easily transesterified. So
pretreatment of WFO is necessary. Additional
preprocesses such as filtration, water removal
and determination of FFA content were performed
during biodiesel production.
During the production, three operations were
performed namely, transesterification, phase
separation and purification. In this study,
methanol was used and methyl esters were
produced. After the reaction was completed the
products were separated into two layers. The
ester product floated to the top and the by-product
glycerol precipitated to as the bottom layer. After
the separation of the phases, the catalyst and
ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies
alcohol were washed from the methyl ester with
water.
2.1.1 Collection and Pre-treatment of WFO
WFO was collected from a cafeteria located in the
ground floor of our engineering building. Between
18 - 20 liters of WFO was accumulated at the end
of a day in the spring term. Virgin sunflower oil
was used in the cafeteria and it became WFO
after two to three days depending on the work
load. WFO was filtered to remove food residues
and solid precipitate then, heated to 100 - 120°C
to remove water before the transesterification
conversion. The water content was determined by
the Troy method using a microwave owen
(Shnaikat et al 2010) then, percentage of solid
particles was calculated after filtration. It was
found that WFO contained about 1 % solid
particles and between 4 - 5 % water.
A high FFA content was undesirable in the
transesterification process since higher the acidity
of the WFO smaller the conversion to biodiesel
fuel. WFO may contain up to 5 - 6% fatty acids.
Titration was necessary to determine the FFA
content in WFO otherwise, catalyst (NaOH) used
in the process would be consumed to neutralize
FFA and this would slow down the reaction. FFA
in the WFO was found by titration as described in
(Shnaikat et al 2010) and then the amount of
base (NaOH) necessary to neutralize FFA could
be calculated.
2.1.2 Transesterification Reaction
The transesterification reaction involved a
chemical reaction between WFO (triglyceride) and
methanol in the presence of the NaOH as the
catalyst. The high purity NaOH and methyl
alcohol supplied by Merck were used as catalyst
and alcohol. The amount of NaOH in grams
needed for 1 liter of WFO was calculated using
the relation T+3.5 where T was the mass of
NaOH used to neutralize WFO and 3.5 is the
mass of catalyst used to accelerate the
transesterification reaction (Shnaikat et al 2010).
A 2.0 liter three-neck flask seen in Figure 4(a)
was used to contain the reactants and the
resulting products of the transesterification
reaction given in Figure 1.
2.1.3 Separation and Purification of Biodiesel
The resulting mixture obtained after the reaction
was poured into a 2.0 liter separation funnel and
kept for overnight for separation. The less dense
ester was separated by gravity and floated to the
upper section of the funnel as seen in Figure 4(b).
The glycerol, excess methanol and undesired
products were segregated to the bottom and were
decanted. The upper layer was collected for
further purification by washing. Washing was a
process to remove entrained glycerol, catalyst,
soap and excess methanol. Distilled water was
used for washing the biodiesel to avoid the
contamination of oil. The clear water was settled
at the bottom of the separation funnel and
biodiesel was formed at the top layer. Washing
was repeated until to obtain a pH level of 7.0 in
the water separated.
Drying was ascertained by heating the washed
fuel approximately to 110 oC in an open container.
Heating was carried out until no more water vapor
cames out of the fuel. The end product was the
biodiesel required which appeared as a clear,
amber-colored liquid as shown in Figure 4(c). The
heating process also evaporated any traces of
remaining alcohol as well.
2.2 DETERMINATION OF COLD FLOW
PROPERTIES
2.2.1 Cloud Point and Pour Point Set-up
The apparatus used for CP and PP
measurements were manufactured following the
ASTM and EN - ISO standards (Gökçe and
Kırmaz 2010, Al-Said and Nadeem 2010). A glass
jar containing 45 ml biodiesel sample was fitted
into an aluminum cylinder that was placed in the
middle of the apparatus shown schematically in
Figure 5. It was important that the glass jar should

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4: Laboratory scale biodiesel production: (a) Transesterification reactor, (b) Separation of crude
biodiesel from crude glycerol, (c) Commercial diesel fuel (left) and biodiesel produced (right).

be thermally insulated from the aluminum cylinder stainless steel cooling bath containing brine at
by means of a cork disk, stopper and ring -12 oC. The cooling bath itself was embedded in
assembly. The assembly was inserted in an 8 liter an 11 cm thick styrofoam (polystyrene) block to

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies

isolate it against heat transfer and vibration. The
entire assembly was secured in a 3 cm thick
wooden box. It was noted that the temperature of
the cooling bath remained almost unchanged after
24 h. Temperature of the biodiesel sample was
measured using an ASTM 5C type thermometer
then, repeated with a T-type thermocouple. The
biodiesel sample was cooled under those
conditions described in the ASTM or ISO
standards (Al-Said and Nadeem 2010). Three
measurements were made for each sample to
check the consistency of the data collected. The
three cold flow properties of the biodiesel
produced including the CP are listed in Table 1. Figure 5: Apparatus manufactured to determine
the CP and PP temperatures.
2.2.2 Cold Filter Plugging Point Set-up

Cloud point and pour point set-up was also used

for CFPP measurements with the addition of a
vacuum system and a pipette with filter unit. The
apparatus manufactured (Pervais et al 2010) was
slightly deviated and also a modified version of
the system prescribed in ASTM D6371-05 and EN
116:1998. The double oblique bore stopcock was
replaced by three valves and named as (1) air
flow rate adjusting valve, (2) suction valve and (3)
release valve. Air flow rate of the vacuum source
was adapted to the required level, at 200 mm
water of vacuum, using the air flow rate adjusting
valve. At the beginning of each test suction and
release valves were closed and the tests were
started by opening the suction valve after placing
the pipette with filter unit into the test jar. After
each test, the release valve was opened for the Figure 6: The mesh of the plastic filter used and
sample to drain back to the test jar. the micron scale (top).
Table 1: Cold flow characteristics of the biodiesel produced and of the commercial diesel 2 fuel
Biodiesel Test Methods Cold Flow Properties (oC)
Property EN 14214/14213 ASTM D6751 Biodiesel Produced Diesel 2 Fuel [10]
CP ISO 3015:92 ASTM D2500-09 15 -16
PP ISO 3016:1994 ASTM D97-05 11 -27
CFPP EN 116:1998 ASTM D6371-05 13 -18

Two plastic filters were used together and each

filter had a nominal aperture size of 160 μm and a
nominal wire diameter of 80 μm as can be
measured from the micron scale placed on top of
Figure 6. Use of single and triple filters resulted in
lower and higher values of CFPP than expected.
CFPP is normally expected to be between CP
and PP. However, only the double filter usage
resulted in reasonable values of CFPP and can
be seen in Table 1.
The biodiesel produced was blended with a
commercial diesel fuel on a volume basis. The
commercial diesel fuel expected to be EN
590:2009 was obtained from a petrol station in
Lefkoşa. Required amounts of biodiesel and
commercial diesel were mixed to add up to 45 ml.
Blends containing 0, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 70, 80,
90 and 100 % commercial diesel were prepared.

2.3 BLEND PREPARATION 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies

 primarily on the large amounts of saturated fatty
3.1 EFFICIENCY OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION compounds present WFO.

Transesterification was successfully employed in Once CP is determined as 15oC, the CFPP can
the experimental work to reduce the viscosity. be estimated as 12.4oC by employing the
Methanol, a less expensive alcohol, was used empirical relation (Acaroğlu 2007) below before
during transesterification reaction. Sodium an experimental measurement.
hydroxide was used in the production of biodiesel
due to its availability and also it reduces the CFPP=1.019 (CP) – 2.9 (2)
production cost. The molar ratio of alcohol to
WFO was calculated as 3:1 by stoichiometry, but Considering the error in temperature
excess methanol was added for a higher yield in a measurement is ±1.5 C (ASTM D2500-09) the
o

shorter time. Average percent conversion of WFO
that was used to produce biodiesel could be
estimated using the formula below
mester  MWoil
% Conversion   100 , (1)
MWester  moil
where mester is the weight of ester collected (g),
moil is the weight of WFO (g), MWoil is the
averaged molecular weight of fatty acid, MWester is
the molecular weight of fatty acid ester.
WFO used was assumed to be steraic acid in the
nature that has molecular formula of
CH3(CH2)16COOH with a molecular mass of
284.48 g/mol. The transesterification of WFO
using methyl alcohol yields a methyl ester with a
molecular formula of CH3(CH2)16COOCH3 and a
molecular mass of 298.51 g/mol. The percent
conversion was obtained as 93 %. After the
purification of the biodiesel produced, the
conversion percentage dropped to 84 % due to
the mass lost during washing (Shnaikat et al
2010).
CFPP estimated can be regarded as a good
assessment since it differs only about 5 % from
the measured CFPP value of 13oC. The ASTM
D6751 specifies the maximum CFPP
temperatures as 0oC between April 15 and
September 30, -10oC from October 1 to
November 15, -20oC between November 16 –
February 28 and -10oC from March 1 to April 14 in
the US.
The monthly average minimum climatic
temperatures obtained from Meteorology
Department of TRNC can be seen in Figure 7.
The lowest average minimum temperatures were
observed at 5oC during January and February.
Not only CFPP but also PP and CP temperatures
of the biodiesel produced from WFO were above
5oC. It appears that the pure biodiesel can be
suitable from May to October, i.e. in the six
months of the year in Lefkoşa. Nevertheless, a
common remedy to lower cold flow temperatures
including the CFPP is to blend commercial diesel
fuel into the biodiesel. These blends are known as
“winter blends” and are examined in Section 3.5.
25

Currently, the EN 590:2009 describes the physical

20
Ave. Min. Temp. (ºC)

properties that all automotive diesel fuel must

meet if it is to be sold in the European Union and 15
allows the blending of up to 7% FAME, i.e.
biodiesel, with commercial diesel. 10

5
3.2 COLD FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
BIODIESEL
0
J F M A M J J A S O N D
The CP, PP and CFPP were observed at 15oC, Months
11oC and 13oC, respectively for the biodiesel
produced. The poor cold flow characteristics as
compared to the diesel 2 fuel (Acaroğlu 2007) can Figure 7: Monthly average minimum temperatures
be seen readily in Table 1. All three temperatures in Lefkoşa during a year.
were higher than their counterparts given for the
diesel 2 fuel and also the biodiesel produced from
virgin vegetable oil. This behavior is attributed 3.3 COOLING CURVE OF BIODIESEL

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies


The temperature versus time curve disclosed by
the freezing biodiesel is given in Figure 8. The
plateau observed at 11oC is due to a thermal
arrest which is a result of solidification of primarily
a crystalline solid phase from a liquid. A thermal
arrest would not be observed if, the solid, i.e. wax,
were an amorphous phase. The solidification of a
crystalline solid involves nucleation and growth
stages. The cloud point observed at 15 oC
corresponds to a temperature at which a
detectable amount of wax has solidified. This
temperature is expected to be below the
thermodynamic cloud point or the nucleation
temperature of solid wax since the wax nuclei
would be in nm scale in the nucleation process. A
disordered liquid phase freezes into an ordered
solid phase during growth following nucleation.
The thermal arrest observed at 11 oC is a result of
the evolution of the latent heat given off by the
liquid biodiesel and corresponds to the growth
stage of wax. It took about 30 minutes for the 45
ml biodiesel sample to release its latent heat
completely and become fully a solid phase as can
be evaluated from Figure 8. The pour point in this
aspect can be related with the zero fluidity
temperature of the semisolid wax phase during its
growth. The wax structure already solidified was
sufficient to block completely the flow of solid -
liquid mixture.
18
17
16
15
Temperature (ºC)
14
13
12
11
10
9 thermocouple gave a slightly higher cloud point
8 than the ASTM D2500 procedure. They argued
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Time (min.)
Figure 8: The cooling curve of the biodiesel during
solidification in the cooling bath.
3.4 MODIIFICATIONS MADE IN THE CP AND
CFPP MEASUREMENT SET-UPS
The test procedure to measure CP both in ASTM
D2500-09 and ISO 3015:1992 has been criticized
particularly, by the oil companies (Kruka and
Cadena 1995) because it may contain some
ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies
inaccuracies. In an attempt to measure CP more
accurately the following measures were taken in
the present work.
(i) The cloudness is assessed by visual
examination close to the flat bottom end of
cylindrical test jar of approximately 34 mm in
diameter and 120 mm height in the two
standards. The visual examination is
subjective and may lead to variations both in
temperature readings and also in the
definition and size of the cloud formed in the
biodiesel. After the preliminary tests, the use
of a magnifying glass was found to be helpful
in observing the cloud formation and also the
temperature reading.
(ii) A second source of inaccuracy was
the delay in temperature reading from the
thermometer since a short but a finite time
was necessary. An additional time was spent
when the thermometer was taken out of the
test jar for temperature reading in the vicinity
of cloud point. The thermometer temperature
would rise in that time interval. There would
also be a delay in reading the actual CP
temperature as a result of the thermal inertia
of mercury thermometer. Following the
measurement of CP using a thermometer, the
employment of a T- type thermocouple
allowed checking any discrepancy in
temperature reading.
The ASTM D2500 has been blamed by the oil
companies because the test procedure for cloud
point determination is not applicable to dark crude
oils and also does not account for potential
undercooking of the wax. Absence of stirring can
be another problem. Kruka and Cadena reported
that stirring and use of a rapidly responding
90 100 110 120 that the actual cloud point would be somewhere
between the average of the heating and cooling
cycle cloud points and the heating cycle value. In
this context, a cooling curve test such as
described in ASTM D87-09 can be beneficial in
measuring of CP precisely. Alternative and more
sophisticated test methods have been published
by ASTM (ASTM D3117-03, ASTM D5771-05,
ASTM D5772-05,ASTM D5773-07). Nevertheless,
the procedure described in the current ASTM
2500 and ISO 3015 is the official test method
required to measure CP.
The exact measurement of CP is critical since it
precedes the CFPP temperature. The wax Figure 9: Effect of blending commercial EN
crystals stick together to form bigger ones below 590:2009 fuel on the CP, CFPP and PP
the CP temperature then, these larger crystals temperatures of biodiesel.
block fuel filters and plug fuel lines when CFPP is
reached. It can be argued that the error involved Tang et al, 2008, correlated the CP and PP with
among the three temperatures measured may be the blend compositions by empirical second-order
the smallest in PP measurement. polynomial equations. However, no correlation
was given for CFPP. The CP curve in Figure 9
can be correlated to the blend composition below
3.5 COLD FLOW PROPERTIES OF BIODIESEL 70% by an empirical fifth-order polynomial
– COMMERCIAL DIESEL BLENDS equation and by a heat capacity model above
70% which are given in Eqs. 2 and 3,
Cold flow properties of biodiesel - commercial respectively. CFPP and PP were correlated with
diesel blends were determined and are presented the blend composition by an empirical second-
in Figure 9. It can be seen that CP, CFPP and PP order polynomial equation as shown in Eq. 4. In
tend to decrease with increasing commercial these equations, X is the commercial diesel
diesel content. CP shows an exception and content and T is the temperature. The coefficients
remains constant at 14 °C from 10 to 50 % of the equations are given in Table 2 together with
commercial diesel addition, increasing the their standard errors and correlation coefficients
difference between CP and CFPP. A rapid (R2).
decrease in CP is observed when the commercial
diesel concentration is kept between 70 to 90 %.
The difference between CP and CFPP converges T  abX cX 2 d X3 eX 4  f X5
to 2°C at 100 % commercial diesel as it was for X  70 % (3)
initially found also for the pure biodiesel.
C
The current EN 590:2009 gives six CFPP grades T  abX  for X  70 % (4)
for temperate climates. They change from Grade X2
A to Grade F covering a range of CFPP from 5°C
to -20°C. After determining CFPP at -4°C for the T  abX cX 2 (5)
commercial diesel, it can be expected that the
diesel used in this study corresponds to Grade C
of EN 590:2009. Bhale et al, 2009, reported that crystal growth
inhibitors, also known as pour point depressants,
reduce PP of biodiesel. On the contrary, they
15
usually have no effect on CP and CFPP at low
10
temperatures. It appears that from Figure 9 that
CP the commercial diesel fuel can be a good PP and
CFPP
CFPP depressant in all blends. However, to lower
Temperature (ºC)

5
the CP, it becomes effective only above 70%
0 concentration in the blend.
PP
-5

-10

-15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Commercial Diesel Content (%)

Table 2: Coefficients of empirical correlations of CP, CFPP and PP in biodiesel - commercial diesel blends.
ErrorStandard
Properties

Commertia

Correlation
Correlatio
Cold Flow

Coefficient
l Diesel

Constants
n

a b c d e f

ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies

 Conten
t
≤ 70 % Eq. (1) 14.99903 -0.21131
CP
≥ 70 % Eq. (2) -66.01611 0.39324
CFPP 0 -100 % Eq. (3) 12.17001 -0.06413 -0.00095
PP 0 -100 % Eq. (3) 10.71362 -0.28405
Experimentally determined CFPP and the values
obtained using Eq. (2) deviate from each other up
to about 4 °C in blends containing between 20 %
and 80 % commercial diesel. The differences are
about 1°C or less for blends below 20 % and
above 80 %.
4. CONCLUSIONS
The use of WFO instead of virgin vegetable oil to
produce biodiesel is an effective way to reduce
the raw material cost. In addition, using WFO also
helps to relieve the problem of waste oil disposal.
The results of an informal survey revealed that
the university cafeterias were the largest source
of WFO whereas the smallest amount of WFO
was accumulated in the kebab houses. The
biodiesel of the current survey was produced from
WFO using a transesterification reaction. The
average percent conversion to biodiesel was 93
% after separation and dropped to 84 % following
purification. The biodiesel produced was waxed at
a higher temperature than the commercial diesel
fuel and also the biodiesel obtained from most
virgin vegetable oils. The three important
parameters for low temperature applications, i.e.
CP, PP and CFPP temperatures were found as
15oC, 11oC and 13oC, respectively. The poor cold
flow characteristics limit the use of pure biodiesel
from May to October in Lefkoşa. Nevertheless, all
three properties can be improved when the
biodiesel is blended with commercial diesel fuel
thus; allowing proper blends for the winter
season.
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ICAT’2010: 5th International Conference on Energy and Automotive Technologies
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