Use of Vegetable Oils

However, such a fuel is not well adapted to commercial modern diesel engines, even when used as a low percentage in the normal diesel pool. Several kinds of problems have been observed (and confirmed by recent studies, carried out in Europe, especially in Germany and France)  

This is why, contrarily to the case of gasoline for which pure ethanol has long been used as a satisfactory component, vegetable oils have not been in use as a blending component in the diesel pool. 

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D.B. Sandy, The production and use of vegetable oils in Ptolemaic Egypt, Bulletin of the American Society ofPapyrologists, Supplement 6 (1989). 

Use of cosolvent. Various cosolvents, such as acetone, ethanol, methanol, hexane, dichloromethane, and water, have been used for the removal of carotenoids using SC-CO2 extraction (Ollanketo and others 2001). All these cosolvents except water (only 2% of recovery) increased the carotenoid recovery. The use of vegetable oils such as hazelnut and canola oil as a cosolvent for the recovery of carotenoids from carrots and tomatoes have been reported (Sun and Temelli, 2006 Shi, 2001 Vasapollo and others 2004). For the extraction without cosolvent addition, the lycopene yield was below 10% for 2- to 5-hr extraction time, whereas in the presence of hazelnut oil, the lycopene yield increased to about 20% and 30% in 5 and 8 hr, respectively. The advantages of using vegetable oils as cosolvents are the higher extraction yield the elimination of organic solvent addition, which needs to be removed later and the enrichment of the oil with carotenoids that can be potentially used in a variety of product applications. 

Alternatively, vegetable oil can be upgraded to a fuel with similar properties as BTL by hydro-treating. For optimum use of vegetable oil, dedicated diesel engines are required. 

The use of vegetable oil for remediation of organic contaminants in an aquifer or unsaturated zone has been smdied at Pacific Northwest Laboratory. The oil strips organic compounds from the aqueous phase or particulate matter and is then pumped out for recovery. In addition, the oil can be used as a carbon source by microorganisms, hence encouraging in situ bioremediation. The technology has not proceeded beyond bench-scale testing and is not commercially available. 

G. Knothe, R.O. Dunn and M.O. Bagby, in Biodiesel the use of vegetable oils and their derivatives as alternative diesel fuels. USDA, Peoria, IL, 1996, Volume, p. 37. 

Knothe, G., and Dunn, R. O. 1997. Biodiesel The Use of Vegetable Oils and Their Derivatives as Alternative Diesel Fuels. In Saha, B. C., and Woodward, J. (Eds.), ACS Symp. Ser. 666, Fuels and Chemicals from Biomass (pp. 1172-208). Washington, D. C. American Chemical Society. 

Hou, C. T. 2003. New uses of vegetable oils novel oxygenated fatty acids by biotransformation. SIM News, 53,56-61. 

With a view to finding new industrial uses of vegetable oils, the saturated fatty acid content may also be increased. Three high stearic acid sunflower mutants, having as much as 28%, 15%, and 14% of stearic acid in the seed lipids have been... 

Research groups are pursuing one or both courses to enhance the value and uses of vegetable oil for food and to expand industrial crop production and develop renewable resources that can replace products derived from petroleum. Although none of these have been commercialized yet, the following examples present anticipated new oils. 

The widespread use of vegetable oils as lubricant basestocks will depend largely on how well they perform during high-temperature oxidation and low-temperature applications. 

The pressure for increased use of vegetable oils in lubricants, due to environmental as well as health and safety considerations, is likely to continue. New genetic varieties, commercialisation of existing varieties, together with new chemical modifications will increase the types of materials available. Economic trends are likely... 

Vegetable oils go to a number of end uses, edible and industrial. Some of the edible uses of vegetable oils are shortening, margarine, salad oils, frying oils, hard butters, and surfactants. Further processing such as hydrogenation is used to produce hard fats or to enhance oxidative stability [107—114],... 

Regrettably, all this chemical ferment has not yet found a biochemical counterpart in the sense that no study on the use of biocatalytic systems has been published in the context of the use of vegetable oils or their fatty acids as sources of polymeric materials. 

One of the major non-food uses of vegetable oils (approximately 5(X) million pounds of oil per annum in the US) is the production of soaps, detergents, and other surfactants. The solubility and other physical properties of medium-chain fatty acids and their derivatives make them especially suited for surfactant manufacture. Coconut and palm kernel oils, which contain 40-60% lauric acid (12 0), are current major feedstocks for the surfactant industry. The mechanism of synthesis of lauric and other medium-chain fatty acids in plants involves the action of a medium-chain acyl-ACP thioesterase which terminates fatty acid synthesis after a 10 or 12 carbon chain has been assembled (M. Pollard,... 

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