Technical aspects of oil extraction and biodiesel production from wild almond seeds

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental results of the oil extraction process from wild almond seeds by mechanical and chemical methods. The optimum conditions for the biodiesel production from the extracted oil via transesterification reaction using methanol and potassium hydroxide (KOH) are reported. Chemical extraction was found to be an effective technique for wild almond oil extraction. Simple distillation was used as oil extraction unit applying 140 ml of n-hexane as solvent at 70ºC for 20 min. The oil yield was 43.11±0.98%. This extracted oil was used as raw material for biodiesel production with the maximum yield of 83.20±1.11%. The optimum conditions for biodiesel production were the catalyst loading of 0.5 wt% and 9:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil in a controlled reaction temperature of 70ºC for 60 min. Finally, the properties of biodiesel were analyzed and most properties met the requirements of the department of energy business standard.