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Petrochemicals
7
Chemical Technology • February 2015
are: goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment
and interpretation.
Energy production from fossil fuels has higher greenhouse
emissions that lead to global warming; the high demand of
energy has led to renewable energy development. Biodiesel
falls under renewable energy and has low environmental
impacts as compared to the energy from the fossil fuels
(Varanda
et al
, 2011).
The environmental impact of a product is considered im-
portant because it degrades to the earth and its species. Life
Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are being used to determine the
impact of biodiesel on the environment so that the impacts
can be reduced by making improvements in their life cycle
where necessary or by choosing a more environmentally
friendly process.Making biodiesel from used cooking oil is
considered as a way of reducing greenhouse emissions
which benefits the environment and also shows sustainability
through waste conversion to renewable energy (Basheer
et
al
, 2012).
Problem statements and research
questions
It is desired to perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on
different biodiesel production processes in order to deter-
mine which one has fewer environmental impacts. Due to
the escalating global warming issue, processes that have
lower environmental impacts are getting attention from vari-
ous industries. An LCA assists in deciding which process is
feasible from an environmental perspective and which to
rule out. The LCA will be performed by conducting lab scale
experiments in order to find the required input and output
for each biodiesel production process using SimaPro 7.3.3
as an analysis tool.
The following questions will be answered:
• What is the LCA score of a biodiesel production process
using different catalysts, ie, KOH and NaOH and alcohols,
methanol and ethanol?
• From the LCA scores which process is more favourable
from an environmental point of view?
This article aims to produce different biodiesel samples
and to compare the LCA of the different processes. Vari-
ous biodiesel experiments using different alcohols and
catalyst were performed. The input and output data from
the lab scale experiment will be used as input to the LCA
software, SimaPro 7.3.3 to quantify the environmental
impact of each process. The LCA scores will then be used
to determine which biodiesel production process has the
lowest environmental impact.
Experimental procedure
Biodiesel production method
Oil filtration
Waste cooking oil that was used for frying food was collected
from the dining hall (Matrix, University of theWitwatersrand).
• Food chunks in the oil were allowed to settle for a day.
• A sieve was used to filter out the small particles remaining
WASTE MANAGEMENT