Toward Efficient Continuous Production of Biodiesel from Brown Grease

An increase in energy consumption and the extended use of nonrenewable fossil fuels raises the need to develop alternative fuels as an energy supply that can protect the environment from unwanted emissions of pollutants. One alternative renewable fuel is biodiesel. Currently, most biodiesel feed sources are edible oils, but using them leads to the dilution of global food sources. The present study aims to find an effective method of biodiesel production using food industry fatty wastes called brown grease (BG). BG contains fats, mainly linoleic and oleic free fatty acids (FFAs), that can serve as raw materials for biodiesel production using esterification reactions. The esterification and transesterification reactions for biodiesel production were studied using commercial FFAs, commercial glyceryl trilinoleate (trilinolein), soybean oil, and BG. The reactions were carried out under ultrasonic activation using BF₃ and AlCl₃ Lewis acids as catalysts in both free and immobilized forms when immobilization was performed in silica matrices using the sol-gel synthesis route. Biodiesel production was examined in batch and continuous flow reactors. The BF₃ catalyst was more efficient at the initial stages of the continuous operation, reaching a maximum conversion of 90%, with a gradual decrease in efficiency after 15 h of the process. The AlCl₃ catalyst showed better stability, reaching maximum yields of 97% and maintaining efficiency until the end of the experiment. The proposed method offers an efficient and easy way to produce biodiesel from a variety of lipids sources, including fatty wastes (BG).