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Nowadays, biodiesel has been receiving attention as the most promising renewable and environmentally friendly alternative biofuel to diesel fuel. It has many advantages including oxygen content in the molecular structure and higher cetane number. On the other hand, the main lacks of biodiesel are the high viscosity (causing poor atomization and a decrease in engine performance), and high production cost. To handle both shortcomings, the combined influences of transesterification parameters (potassium methoxide amount, reaction temperature, methyl alcohol/oil molar ratio, and reaction time) on viscosities of biodiesels were experimentally examined as a full matrix experimental design. The transesterification parameters, which provided the possible minimum viscosity, were researched using the cubic spline interpolation method. According to results, the minimum biodiesel viscosity of 3.545 mm(2)/s was reached at the optimal reaction parameters (catalyst amount of 1.00%, methyl alcohol/oil molar ratio of 8:1, reaction temperature of 55 degrees C and reaction time of 53 min). The fuel characteristics of the final waste cooking oil biodiesel (WCOB) produced under optimal parameters were also determined to be within limits in EN 14214 standard. |
