Biodiesel from Used

Cooking Oil
Saving the environment one
drop at a time.
Priyanshi Khandelwal
Radhika Agrawal
Shyama Agrawal
Tanya Gupta

The Idea
The synopsis of the idea is that we aim to turn used
cooking oil into biodiesel.
This is possible, at a scientific level, because the fats
present in waste vegetable oil can, with the help of an
alcohol and a catalyst, be converted into employable
fats in the form of biodiesel.
This biodiesel easily replaces regular diesel as fuel in
the automobiles.
Apart from tremendous profit prospects this has an
essentially two fold environmental benefit.

Profit Prospects
At present, there are about 800,000 to 1,000,000 estimated restaurants in
India.
According to a study, the average fast food joint in the United States
discards about 5000 litres of cooking oil per month.
In India, apart from the registered restaurants, there are many street food
stalls that heavily rely on oil, like kachoris and samosas and many food
industries like bhujiyas that use and discard waste vegetable oil by the ton.
All this can add up to a lot of raw material wasted.
To avoid this, we can turn the discarded oil into biodiesel.
This leads to cheap raw material, if not free and greatly increases the profit
margins.
Also, an important by-product of biodiesel production is glycerine, which can
also be bottled and sold.

Two Fold Environmental Benefit

Firstly, we are saving the environment by preventing the
disposal of waste oil.
The most important thing to consider is that our raw
material is waste vegetable oil, a commodity that would
have otherwise ended up down the drain.
Secondly, biodiesel on combustion gives less
environmentally hazardous chemicals and less toxic
gases.
This prevents a lot of stress on the environment that
occurs due to highly polluting automobile exhaust.

The Actual Process

Filtration: To remove the cloudiness of the oil and any
solid residues.
Titration: To test the acidity of the oil and to figure out
the amount of catalyst (NaOH) required.
Heating: The filtered oil needs to be heated at 130 F in
the preparation process
Methoxide (Methanol + NaOH) mixing and Introduction
to the waste vegetable oil
Isolation of glycerine by sedimentation over 12-14
hours.

What do figures say?

Some figures that might interest you:
Every year, the daily consumption
of crude oil in India increases by an
average of 7-8%. We aim to replace
some of the expensive crude oil
with homemade and environment
friendly biodiesel.
For 2013, the use per day was 3509
thousand barrels as opposed to 643
in 1980.
At the same rate of increase, there
will be at least 3550 thousand
barrels per day by 2016.
This is approximately 564,450,000

 Since there are at least 800,000

restaurants which output 167
liters of waste vegetable oil per
day, this means we have
133,600,000 liters of raw
material.
This translates to 106,880,000
liters of biodiesel made per day.
This means about 20% of the
daily crude oil consumption can
be replaced by eco-friendly
biodiesel.
Also, the more all of us prefer
biodiesel, the more we can
contribute in creating an eco
friendly environment.

Amount of fuel consumed in India

Biodiesel

Crude Oil

Why Use Biodiesel Over Diesel

It has the same energy efficiency as petroleum diesel,
but it is nontoxic, easy to handle and biodegradable.
Biodiesel production and use reduces the spending on
imports of petroleum.
Instead of paying foreign workers for the petroleum
diesel they refine, we are creating employment and job
opportunities for the countrys own labour force.

Environmental & Social

Problems We Solve
Biodiesel, when combusted gives negligible amounts of
sulphur and aromatic compounds which cause pollution.
Since pollution is avoided, human heath is benefitted.
The air is cleaner and less harmful to the homeostasis of
the bodily functions.
The production and use of biodiesel leads to reduction
of ones carbon footprint and can emerge as a solution
to the problems caused by global warming, greenhouse
effect and climate change.
Since oil is being discarded after one use, the saturated
fat content of cooking oil is low. This reduces the health
risks related to high cholesterol levels.

Alternative eco-friendly ways to

make biodiesel
There are two alternative ways to produce biodiesel, but
they are not as cost effective as using waste vegetable
oil.
Some prevalent algae like Chlorella and Dunaliella can
be converted into biodiesel with the help of
transesterification process.
This is a widespread and easily employable technique.
Some plants like Jatropha can yield oil that can be
extracted and converted into biodiesel.
The process includes mixing of alcohols, acids and
extracted oil which react to give the fatty acids present

Possible Problems & Their

Solutions
The main problem is that, since there are no laws in India about
the saturated fat content of fried food, some restaurants and
dhabas reuse their oil.
This reduces the viability of waste vegetable oil as raw material
because it reduces the fat content.
To solve this, laws should be made about the saturated fat
content of food. This will resolve two issues.
1. The increasing health problems in India related to obesity such
as high cholesterol and heart problems can be curbed.
2. The restaurants will be compelled to discard their oil, which
means more raw material for us.

Conclusion
The tremendous profit margins and gains in this
industry were one of our most pronounced motivations
for entering it.
However, we are more focused on the betterment of the
environment as we know it as well as the health of
society.
We can be self reliable and reduce the pressure on the
government for import duty on petroleum.
We would like to conclude on the thought that the usage
of biodiesel is extremely important to add years to the
lives of our descendants.

References

Instructables.com
Indexmundi.com
Wikipedia.com