Synthesis and gas chromatography based characterisation of biodiesel prepared from waste soybean oil

Petroleum resources are limited on a global scale. Due to non-renewability, these fossil-fuels are projected to be depleted in next 40-60 years if consumption continues at the current pace. Moreover, the price instability of crude oil poses a significant threat to nations with constrained financial and economic resources. To address these challenges, alternative energy sources are being explored, and there is ongoing emphasis on further progress in these areas. As an alternative fuel, biodiesel can be used in neat form or mixed with petroleum-based diesel. Therefore, we need to move towards alternative fuel like bio-diesel. Several alternative fuels have been studies among which biodiesel from waste soybean oil having great importance. Bio-diesel could be easily prepared from waste soybean oil, by the process of transesterification with alcohol in presence of sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. India is the fourth largest producer of soybean in the world, and from last few decades, soybean oil is exclusively use as edible oil. In different food industries, several million tonnes of soybean oil uses every year. Therefore, huge amount of waste soybean oil is produced every year. In the present work, we attempt to synthesize biodiesel using waste soybean oil via transesterification, and characterize by physical, chemical, and spectroscopic instruments, and found the characteristics properties of this biodiesel is quite similar to petroleum diesel . Therefore, this synthesis may use biodiesel as an alternative for petroleum diesel.