Optimization of biodiesel production via methyl acetate reaction from cerbera odollam

Cerbera Odollam (sea mango) is a proven promising feedstock for the production of biodiesel due to its high oil content. Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) were produced as the final reaction product in the transesterification reflux condensation reaction of sea mango oil and methyl acetate (MA). Potassium methoxide was used as catalyst to study its reacting potential as a homogeneous base catalyst. The initial part of this project studied the optimum conditions to extract crude sea mango oil. It was found that the content of sea mango sea mango oil was 55%. This optimum amount was obtained by using 18 g of grinded sea mango seeds in 250 ml hexane. The extraction was carried out for 24 hours using solvent extraction method. Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to determine the optimum conditions of the reaction. The three manipulated variables in this reaction were the reaction time, oil to solvent molar ratio, and catalyst wt%. The optimum condition for this reaction determined was 5 hours reaction time, 0.28 wt% of catalyst and 1:35 mol/mol of oil: solvent molar ratio. A series of test were conducted on the final FAME product of this study, namely the FTIR test, GC-FID, calorimeter bomb and viscometer test.