EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Biodiesel is a liquid biofuel made from vegetable or animal fats and an alcohol that can be used
alone or in combination with diesel oil in diesel engines. ASTM International (originally known as the
American Society for Testing andMaterials) defines biodiesel as a mixture of long-chain monoalkylic
esters fromfatty acids obtained from renewable resources, to be used in diesel engines.Blends with
diesel fuel are indicated as ‘‘Bx’’, where ‘‘x’’ is the percentage of biodiesel in the blend. For instance,
‘‘B5’’ indicates a blend with 5% biodiesel and 95% diesel fuel; in consequence, B100 indicates pure
biodiesel.
Oil palm is a tropical plant that grows to a height of 20–25 metres and has a 25-year life cycle.
Eight years after planting, full production is achieved.The palm yields two types of oil: palm oil,
which comes from the pulp, and palm oil, which comes from the seeds. Palm kernel oil is extracted
from the fruit's nut. Palm kernel cake is made after the oil is extracted and used as food for
livestock). Several cultivars with significant oil yields have been created and leading by
manufacturers are Indonesia and Malaysia. Over the last few years, global demand for palm oil has
gradually increased. Cooking oil, as well as a raw material for margarine production and butter and
pastry products as a flavouring agent. It's important to note that at room temperature (20–22C),
pure palm oil is semisolid and it's often combined with other vegetable oils in various applications.
Next, there are five stages of biodiesel produxtion process;
1) Treatment of raw materials
2) Alcohol-catalyst mixing
3) Chemical reaction
4) Separation of the reaction products
5) Purification of the reaction products

In this case, a generic transesterification reaction is presented in Eq. (1); RCOOR0 indicates an ester,
R00OH an alcohol, R0OH another alcohol (glycerol), RCOOR00 an ester mixture and cat a catalyst:
RCOO R' ' + R' ' OH ↔ R ' OH + RCOOR ' ' (1)
In this process, methanol is the alcohol that used for transesterification of palm oil, thus, the product
of reaction is a mixture of methyl ester.

H 2 C−OCO R1 H 2 C−OH CH 3−OCO R1

↓ ↓ ↓

HC−OCO R2 +3 C H 3 O H KOH HC−OH CH 3−OCO R2

↓ ↓ ↓
H 2 C−OCO R3 H 2 C−OH CH 3−OCO R3

Fig.1 Basic Transeterification reactio with methanol

Although transesterification is the most important step in biodiesel production (because it creates a
mixture of esters), there are still a few more procedures to get a product that meets international
requirements as stated above,  As a result, that once chemical reaction is complete and the two
phases (mix of esters and glycerin) have been separated, the mixture of methyl esters must be
filtered to reduce the pollutants' concentration to acceptable levels. These include catalyst
remnants, water, and methanol, which is frequently added in excess proportion with the raw
ingredients to increase the transesterification reaction's conversion efficiency.
REFERENCES

1. Ramano, SD; Sorichetti, P.A, Dielectric Spectroscopy in Biodiesel Production and

Characterization, 2011,Vill,p17-p18