Technical complications in expelling and converting Domba oil into biodiesel

Desiccated resinous ‘Domba’ (Calophyllum inophyllum L.) kernels were mechanically expelled to obtain oil. The highly viscous cold pressed oil was then converted into biodiesel using four different transesterification protocols in a newly developed programmable biodiesel reactor. This paper describes the difficulties associated with expelling and converting Domba oil from the kernels, and the efforts made to overcome the problems. Amongst the four methods tested, 4-stage transesterification protocol was found to yield better quality biodiesel than the other protocols.