Abstract—The world is confronted with the twin crisis of fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation. Hence it is necessary to look for alternative fuels, which can be produced from materials available within the country. Although vegetable oils can be fuel for diesel engines, their high viscosities, low volatilities and poor cold flow properties have led to the investigation of their various derivatives. Among the different possible sources, fatty acid methyl esters, known as Biodiesel fuel derived from triglycerides (vegetable oil and animal fates) by trans-esterification with methanol, present the promising alternative substitute to diesel fuels and have received the most attention nowadays. The main advantages of using Biodiesel are its renewability, better quality exhaust gas emission, its biodegradability and the organic carbon present in it is photosynthetic in origin. It does not contribute to a rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and consequently to the green house effect. Here we use seabuckthorns (Hippophae L). Oils from sea-buckthorn seeds and pulp differ considerably in fatty acid composition. While linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid are the major fatty acids in seed oil, sea buckthorn pulp oil contains approximately 65% combination of the monounsaturated fatty acid, palmitoleic acid, saturated fatty acid and palmitic acid. It has low viscosity among vegetable oils. Due to low acidic value we use base catalyst, activated calcium oxide.
Index Terms—seabuckthorn, hippophae L, low viscosity, activated calcium oxide.
Cite: S.S Varun Shankar, Vinoth. B, R. Dinesh, S. Anand, Elangovan and S. Srikanth, "Biodiesel from Seabuckthorn Oil," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 15-19, 2010.