What is Biodiesel?

 Biodiesel is a renewable fuel that is made primarily from vegetable oils and animal fats. It can be used in cars, trucks, buses, tractors, generators, and industrial machinery. This type of fuel is also called Renewable Diesel. It has been in use since at least the late 1800s and was initially created to power farm machinery. Biodiesel is mainly made through transesterification which extracts alcohol from vegetable oils like soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and palm oil to create biodiesel fuel with high specific gravity.

Here, John David Kaweske, chairman and CEO of Bio-CleanEnergy S.A. will explain more about biodiesel.

 

What is Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a clean and renewable alternative to petroleum diesel fuel. It can be used in cars, trucks, buses, tractors, generators, and industrial machinery. John David Kaweske shares that biodiesel is primarily made through transesterification which extracts alcohol from vegetable oils like soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and palm oil to create biodiesel fuel with high specific gravity.

John David Kaweske indicates that biodiesel is an alternative to petroleum diesel fuel that can be used in cars, trucks, buses, tractors, and other engines. It's made by extracting alcohol from vegetable oils or animal fats using the process of transesterification.

 

How Biodiesel is Made

Biodiesel is made from vegetable oils or animal fats through a process of transesterification. In order to create biodiesel fuel, the oils are mixed with methanol (wood alcohol) and hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst at high pressure and temperature. This process transforms the fatty acids into glycerin, which can then be used as a fuel itself or can be further processed into biodiesel fuel with high specific gravity.

John David Kaweske shares that the main byproducts of this process are glycerin and water. Glycerin is then separated from the reaction mixture leaving behind the alcohol, which goes through another distillation process to purify it and increase its concentration to 90-95%. The purified alcohol is finally mixed with hydrogen gas under pressure in an autoclave at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to produce hydrocarbons which are condensates from petroleum-based fuels used as raw materials for biodiesel production.