What is Palm Oil Biodiesel?

Palm Oil Biodiesel is an environmentally- friendly, renewable energy source that could also produce cost savings for taxpayers and private businesses and is produced from palm trees.

The Palm Oil that is "harvested" and produced from palm trees is referred to as "Crude Palm Oil." The crude palm oil is then shipped to be refined by a palm oil refinery. The output is then referred to as Refined Palm Oil which is then suitable to be used as a biodiesel fuel, or blended with petroleum diesel.

Palm oil with an estimated global (annual) production of 25-27 million tons, is the second most produced oil in the world. By country, the leading producers of palm oil are Malaysia (13 million tons) and Indonesia (10 million tons), and together they have provided about 80% to 90% of the world's palm oil.

Approximately 80% (21-23 million tons) of the global production of palm oil is exported to other countries. Malaysia exports about 12 million tons annually and Indonesia exports about 7 million tons annually to the major importers of palm oil, which include; India, China and the European Union.

More about Palm Oil

Crude Palm Oil and Refined Palm Oil are the most traded vegetable oil in the world today. Palm oils have been as a dietary nutrient for nearly five thousand years. Palm oil is harvested from the mesocarp of the Elaeis guineensis fruit, through a refining process that includes; cooking, mashing and pressing. In this process, the seeds are separated and after cracking and removing the shell, the kernel can be processed to yield palm kernel oil and palm kernel cake.

Palm trees are "unisexual" in that they have male and female flowers within the tree. The female flowers bears fruit known as "fresh fruit bunches" or "FFB." Each palm tree is capable of bearing about 10 to 12 bunches per year. Each FFB averages 1000 to 3000 fruits with weights varying between 40 to 70 pounds.

Crude palm oil - also referred to as "CPO" comes from the mesocarp (the fleshy portion of the fruit wall) and depending on the variety and age of the palm. The CPO to bunch ratio is about 25 to 28 percent.

Refined palm oil - after crude palm oil is refined, it is then referred to as Refined Palm Oil, and can then be used in a number of applications, including as a substitute for petroleum diesel - which is known as Palm Oil Biodiesel. Additionally, Palm Oil Biodiesel can be blended with petroleum diesel. What is Canola Biodiesel?

Canola biodiesel is an environmentally- friendly, renewable energy source that could also produce cost savings for taxpayers and private businesses and is produced from farmers that grow canola.

Biodiesel produced from canola and rapeseed oil is superior to soy biodiesel. Especially due to the widely varying price fluctuations of soybeans. And because the feedstock (the oil produced from the fuel crop, such as soybeans, rapeseed or canola) to make biodiesel makes up about 80% of the cost for 100 % biodiesel, basic economics dictate that the feedstock be obtained from the least-cost source, which is going to be either canola or rapeseed.

Initial research conducted by the University of Saskatchewan and the AAFC Saskatoon Research Centre has found that each ton of renewable biodiesel fuel saves five times its weight in diesel fuel. As well, engines using biodiesel demonstrate wear rates as much as 50% lower than those using regular commercial fuels – effectively doubling engine life.

Canola is a member of the Brassica Family, which includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, mustard, radish, and turnip. It is a variant of the crop rapeseed. Grown for its seed, the seed is crushed for the oil contained within. After the oil is extracted, the by-product is a protein-richmeal used by the intensive livestock industry.

Canola is a very small seed, which means sowing depth must be controlled. The current sowing practice is to cover the seed lightly with soil, which provides more protection from drying out after germination.

Canola is generally sown in autumn and develops over winter, with flowers emerging in the spring and is harvested early summer. With a growing period of around 180-200 days climatic effects such as sudden heat waves can reduce yields and hot dry conditions can limit its oil content. Summer weather ensures low moisture (less than 6%) at harvest. Carry-in stocks of canola are minimal because of a lack of on-farm storage. Canola is a good rotational crop, acting as a break crop for cereal root diseases. However for disease-related reasons, a rotation period of 3-5 years is required for canola crops. of iodine in grams absorbed per 100 ml of oil is then the IV. The higher the IV, the more unsaturated (the greater the number of double bonds available) is the oil and the higher the potential to ‘gum up’ when used as a fuel in an engine. Though some oils have a low IV and are suitable without any further processing other than extraction and filtering, the majority of vegetable and animal oils have an IV which does not permit their use as a neat fuel.

Generally speaking, an IV of less than about 25 is required if the neat oil is to be used in unmodified diesel engines and this severely limited the types of oil that can be used.

The IV can be easily reduced by hydrogenation of the oil (reacting the oil with hydrogen), the hydrogen breaking the double bond and converting the fat or oil into a more saturated oil and reducing the tendency of the oil to polymerise. However this process also tends to increase the melting point of the oil and converts the oil into margarine. Only coconut oil has an IV low enough to be used without any special precautions in a unmodified diesel engine. However with a melting point of 25°C, the use of coconut oil in cooler areas would obviously lead to problems.

Linseed oil could be mixed with petroleum diesel at a ratio of up to 1:8 to give an equivalent IV in the mid-twenties. Likewise coconut oil can be thinned with diesel or kerosene to render it less viscous in cooler climates. Obviously the solubility of the oil in petroleum also needs to be taken into account. Another method is to emulsify the oil or fat with ethanol. Most vegetable oils are a mixture of different esters such as oleic acid (main constituent of olive oil), ricinoleic acid (main constituent of castor oil), linoleic acid (main constituents of linseed oil), palmitic acid (main constituent of palm kernel oil) and so on. In an analogous way to that in which crude oil is refined to make a useable automotive fuel, canola oil needs to be transesterified to make an automotive fuel that is useable in unmodified diesel engines.

When the oil is processed in a transesterfication process, the various fatty acids react with the alcohol to form a mixture of lighter esters and glycerol. The name of the specific fuel is called after the plant (or animal) source plus the alcohol. Made from rapeseed oil and methanol, the biodiesel is called Rape Methyl Ester (RME), from canola oil and ethanol, Canola Ethyl Ester (CEE), and from used McDonald’s cooking oil and ethanol or methanol, ("McDiesel").

http://www.cogeneration.net/palm_oil_biodiesel.htm

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Ditulis oleh William Perkasa pada tanggal Thursday, September 18, 2008