Effect of Reaction Temperature on the Yield of Biodiesel From Neem Seed Oil

This research work studied the effect of reaction temperature on the yield of biodiesel from neem seed oil by Transesterification process. The materials used are neem seeds and it was sourced from Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) and its host community (Ihiagwa). The dried seeds measured 10kg and were ground using attrition mill, the oil was extracted using solvent extraction (Soxhlet extraction method, nhexane) process. Biodiesel was produced by transesterification process using a biodiesel production plant designed here in FUTO. The non-edible neem seed oil was used as the feedstock with potassium hydroxide (KOH) and methanol as catalyst and alcohol respectively. The free fatty acid content of the refined oil was 8.42mg/KOH which corresponds to free fatty acid (FFA) value of 4.20%. The FFA was further reduced to less than 1% by two step acid esterification processes. The reaction temperature was varied from 30°C to 65°C while every other parameter such as reaction time, stirring speed, alcohol oil ratio and volume of oil used were kept constant at 60mins, 350rpm, 7:1 and 60m 3 respectively. Conversion of biodiesel was low during reaction at 30°C but increased as the temperature was increased before the decrease beyond 60°C. The maximum yield of 94% was observed at 55°C and the regression equation for yield of neem biodiesel against reaction temperature gave R 2 -value of 0.931. The result shows that reaction temperature can influence the reaction rate and the ethyl esters (neem biodiesel) yield because the intrinsic rate constants are strongly dependent on temperature.