Preparation and characterization of biodiesel from Karanja oil by using silica gel reactor

The oil extraction and biodiesel preparation from Karanja oil have different available methods namely acid catalyzed trans-esterification, acid catalyzed two-step and three-step method etc. The available methods are studied for biodiesel preparation from Karanja oil. The biodiesel conversion by esterification reaction may contain some moisture which may causes to slowdown the reaction rate and affects on the quality of biodiesel by making emulsion. The adsorption technique by using powder form of silica gal has been used in the reactor to improve the reaction rate. The data has been collected at the time of silica gel dosing and the amount of silica gel dosed for every reaction to optimize it. The optimum dosing condition were recorded by selecting the best dosing properties of biodiesel like specific gravity, free fatty acid (FFA) and viscosity etc. The properties of biodiesel namely specific gravity, viscosity, lower calorific value, cetane number, FFA, flash point, pour point, cloud point, iodine value and saponification value etc. have been carried out at optimum reaction condition. The fuel properties has been tested to meet the ASTM standards and compared with the conventional diesel fuel and standard biodiesel.