Process Simulation of Biodiesel Production from Jatropha Curcas Seed Oil

The increasing concerns over diminishing fossil fuel supplies and rising oil prices, as well as adverse environmental and human health impacts from the use of such fuels have led to the need of finding alternative fuels that will reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. Biodiesel from plant and animal oils sources, has been identified as such an alternative fuel. However, the major obstacle in the production and commercialization of biodiesel is the production cost. This high cost is mainly attributed to the cost of using edible vegetable oil as feedstock. There is a need to obtain biodiesel without compromising food security. In this paper, an alkali catalyzed continuous transesterification process with a capacity of 8000 tonnes/year of biodiesel from jatropha curcas seed oil was designed and simulated in HYSYS. Laboratory data was used for the simulation and the process was able to produce biodiesel of high purity (over 99.65%) and by-product glycerine with the purity grade of 95.3%.