Economics methyl biodiesel fuel

The catalytic ozonation process offers a potentially simple and efficient chemical modification whereby the methyl soyate species are cleaved at the double bonds, thus eliminating ail unsaturation and reducing the overall molecular weight of the fuel. This one-step process is fast, selective and simple and is expected to provide an economical route to improve the quality of vegetable-based biodiesel fuels. 

In most parts of the world, the term biodiesel now denotes a diesel fuel that is produced by converting a vegetable oil to methyl (or ethyl) esters. In the United States soybean oil has been the primary feedstock for biodiesel, mainly becase it is commonly the least expensive and most abundant vegetable oil. Although there are economic reasons why corn oil (and other U.S. vegetable oils) has not been used as feedstocks for biodiesel, there are no technical reasons why a corn oil biodiesel could not be successfully developed (personal communication. M. Haas). 

Biodiesel is an alternative to petroleum-based diesel fuel and is most often produced from vegetable oils via an acid- or base-catalyzed process. To be viable, in recent years, a considerable attention has been focused on developing environmentally benign and economically feasible processes to produce alkyl fatty acid methyl esters. Such a process requires to reduce the free fatty acid content to an acceptable level (> 1 wt%) and the ttansesterification of glycerides to fatty acid methyl esters. 

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