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Pretreatment Methods in Biodiesel Production Processes

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Pretreatment Techniques for Biofuels and Biorefineries

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

Biodiesel has emerged as one of the most growing biofuels to replace diesel fuel. Its preference as one of the most popular alternative fuels was based on its characteristics as it is environment friendly, sustainable, biodegradable, and non-toxic. Biodiesel is mandated by many governments worldwide for incorporation into their diesel supply base. Biodiesel is easily produced through transesterification reactions of vegetable oils (triglycerides). However, current commercial usage of refined vegetable oils for biodiesel production is impractical and uneconomical due to high feedstock cost and priority as food resources.

Low-grade oils, typically waste cooking oils, brown greases, crude corn oils, etc., can be better alternatives; however, the high free fatty acids (FFAs) content in such oils has become the main constrain for those potential feedstocks, and therefore pretreatment methods become necessary to prepare such feedstocks to make biodiesel. The chapter highlights the pretreatment methods to utilize and convert the FFAs from various feedstocks to biodiesel and presents the advantages and limitations of using enzymes and conventional catalysts, distillation, blending, and glycerolysis methods to lower FFAs in the feedstocks. An overview on the current status of biodiesel production, the feedstocks and the FFAs factors are also discussed. With the proper pretreatment methods, the high-FFAs feedstocks can indeed become the next ideal feedstocks for the production of biodiesel.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. TransBiodiesel Ltd, Nazareth Street 79, P. O. Box 437, 20200, Shefar-Am, Israel

    Ahmed Tafesh & Sobhi Basheer

Authors
  1. Ahmed Tafesh
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  2. Sobhi Basheer
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Correspondence to Ahmed Tafesh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xuefulu 88, Kunming, 650223, China, People's Republic

    Zhen Fang

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Tafesh, A., Basheer, S. (2013). Pretreatment Methods in Biodiesel Production Processes. In: Fang, Z. (eds) Pretreatment Techniques for Biofuels and Biorefineries. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32735-3_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32735-3_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32734-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32735-3

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