Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
Olatunde S Odedele, Eriola Betiku, Samuel S Okunsolawo and Sheriff O Ajala
Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl
This work investigated the potential of shea butter oil (SHO) as feedstock for synthesis of biodiesel. Due to the high free fatty acid (FFA) of SBO used, response surface methodology (RSM) was employed to model and optimize the pretreatment step while its conversion to biodiesel was modeled and optimized using RSM and artificial neural network (ANN). The acid value of the SBO was reduced to 1.19 mg KOH/g with oil/methanol molar ratio of 3.3, H2SO4 of 0.15 v/v, time of 60 min and temperature of 45oC. Optimum values predicted for the transesterification reaction by RSM were temperature of 90oC, KOH of 0.6 w/v, oil/methanol ration of 3.5 and time of 30 minutes with actual shea butter oil biodiesel (SBOB) yield of 99.65% (w/w). ANN combined with generic algorithm gave the optimal condition as temperature of 820C, KOH of 0.40 w/v, oil/methanol molar ratio of 2.62 and time of 30 minutes with actual SBOB yield of 99.94% (w/w). Coefficient of determination (R�²) and absolute average deviation (AAD) of the models were 0.9923, 0/83% (RSM) and 0.9991, 0.15% (ANN), which demonstrated that ANN model was more efficient than RSM model. Properties of SBOB produced were within biodiesel standard specifications.