Investigation of Properties of Biodiesel Produced from Sheep Fatty Wastes by Eggshell

Abstract
Nowadays, some problems such as environmental pollutions caused by consumption of fossil fuels have led to distortion of ecologic conditions and emergence of environmental hazards. Similarly, restrictions of fossil fuel deposits have led different countries to pay due attention to other types of energy. As such, physical and chemical properties of biodiesel produced from animal waste oil were examined in the present research. For this purpose, ethyl ester was prepared for single-phase transesterification of sheep waste oil and ethylic alcohol and calcined eggshell were used as catalysts at 72 °C. The application of the calcined eggshell (ES) at 1200 °C was enumerated as one of the distinguished characteristics of this study that this substance might be easily isolated from the produced fuels due to its heterogeneity and it would reduce the number of washings. Besides, biodiesel extraction phase was executed in a single stage and, thus, the time duration of production was reduced. A total of 17 laboratory samples was extracted exerting changes in the solvent-oil ratio and respecting the quantity of catalysts and reaction period under various conditions (including 5 hr period, 4.5 g of catalyst amount and an ethanol-to-oil ratio equal to 3). The best quantities came from the given product samples, including the cetane index, dynamic viscosity, kinematic viscosity, flash point, and specific weight of pure ethyl ester of animal waste showed 52, 0.018 (Pa · s), 1.68 (mm2 · s–1), 92.3 °C and 1.14 (N · m–3) respectively. The values of the given parameters such as heat value, cloud point, pour point, and freezing point of ethyl ester are 37.2 (MJ · kg–1), 37.1, 26.7, and 21.9 °C, respectively.