Modeling and Assessment the Effective Parameters of Biodiesel Production from Date Seed Oil via Conventional, Microwave and Ultrasonic methods

In this study, the effective parameters on the amount of biodiesel production from date seed oil via three heating methods of conventional, microwave, and ultrasonic were assessed. In order to carry out the biodiesel production process, the esterification reaction using sulfuric acid as catalyst was firstly performed to reduce the free fatty acid content of date seed oil to the standard amount for transesterification reaction. The results showed that 1 wt.% of catalyst and 8-9 molar ratios of methanol to oil were the optimum amount for all of biodiesel production methods. In other words, utilized method has no effect on the amount of catalyst and methanol in the reaction. The temperature of 56 °C was selected as an optimum temperature in the conventional heating method and the power of around 300 W provided the highest yield in both microwave and ultrasonic methods. However, the major different was in the reduction of reaction time. It decreased from 90 min for conventional method to equilibrium point 7.5 and 3 min for ultrasonic and microwave methods, respectively. According to energy consumption, microwave method was known more suitable than ultrasonic method. The results of modeling presented that suggested models were in good agreement with the experimental values. Methanol/oil molar ratio and reaction temperature in the conventional method, amount of catalyst and methanol in the microwave method and power of ultrasonic waves in the ultrasonic method had the highest influence on the conversion of date seed oil to biodiesel.