Egyptian Scholar at Assam University Develops Biodiesel from Food Waste

(The Hindu) Khalifa Said H. Eldeihy worked on residual food items such as soybean cooking oil waste and leaves of radish and sweet potato -- Leaves of radish and sweet potato are potent sources for producing low-cost biodiesel from waste cooking oil, an Egyptian scholar and his associates at central Assam’s Tezpur University have discovered.

Their studies have been published in the latest editions of two leading science journals – Renewable Energy and Industrial Crops & Products. One is on producing biodiesel from waste soybean oil using radish leaves as a base catalyst while the other is on producing biodiesel from microalgal oil and waste cooking oil using waste sweet potato leaves as catalyst.

Agricultural wastes are promising sources for producing renewable and sustainable clean energies, Prof. Mandal said.

“Generally, biodiesel is produced by the reaction between triglyceride feedstock and alcohol in the presence of a catalyst to form the fatty acid methyl ester (biodiesel) and glycerol,” he explained.

Mr. Khalifa, who started work on the project in October 2019, changed the feedstock oil and catalyst in the chemical process to reduce the cost of the production of biodiesel. He treated residual cooking oil and algae oil, which were then used as feedstock oil.

Microalga is a great proponent of greenhouse gas reduction and can also be cultivated in wastewater. Calcination of the leaves of radish and sweet potato, rich in potassium, resulted in the desired catalyst.

A university spokesperson said the techno-economic analysis of the project is underway to determine the actual cost of the production of biodiesel. READ MORE