Waste cooking oil: a promising feedstock for biodiesel production through power ultrasound and hydrodynamic cavitation

Abstract

The present research work deals with the details of development of laboratory test rigs for power ultrasound and hydrodynamic cavitation test rigs for conversion of WCO into biodiesel in comparison to conventional mechanical stirring. Results show that cavitation techniques can be successfully applied to transesterification reactions, to achieve more than 90% yield of the product for molar ratio 4.5:1 with minimum catalyst percentage of 0.5% and appears to be rapid and effective compared to the mechanical stirring method, for preparing alkyl esters from triglycerides.