Production of Biodiesel from a mixture of Karanja and Linseed oils: Optimization of process parameters

Karanja and linseed are the potential non-edible oil crops which can be used for the biodiesel production. The main objective of this study is to find out the feasibility of using a mixture of karanja oil and linseed oil to produce biodiesel. Karanja oil has high amount of free fatty acid in it and linseed oil has low amount of free fatty acid content. Karanja biodiesel is produced by two step esterification/transesterification process which is costly, health hazardous & corrosive due to use of concentrated acids. Linseed biodiesel can be produced by alkali-base transesterfication which is much faster and gives higher yield than acid-base transesterification. A production method is developed to produce biodiesel from the mixture of karanja and linseed oil which is faster, safer and non-corrosive. The yields in the range of 68.2 to 78.9% have been achieved with varying different parameters like molar ratio, stirring time, mixture ratio and amount of catalyst. Optimum parameters are also established to achieve maximum biodiesel yield from the transesterification of a mixture of linseed and karanja oils.