Production and comprehensive analysis of biodiesel from Dovyalis caffra seed oil

Abstract Biodiesel is one of the promising biofuels to replace fossil fuels as a primary energy source for machineries and vehicles. It can be produced from various edible and non-edible plants seed oil. Dovyalis caffra is one of the indigenous fruits which contains high amount of non-edible oil (43.05%) in its seed parts. However, there is limited research on Dovyalis caffra non-edible seed oil for production of biodiesel. This research is aimed to produce biodiesel from Dovyalis caffra seed oil. The production process was done by transesterification of oil with methanol using base (NaOH) catalyst and the biodiesel percentage yield result became 96 ± 2.00. Physicochemical characterization (moisture, viscosity, acid value, saponification value, peroxide and free fatty acid) of Dovyalis caffra seed oil was conducted and their values became 0.046 ± 0.99, 42.90 ± 0.19, 0.57 ± 0.51, 193 ± 0.21, 2.7 ± 0.73 and 2.25 ± 1.02, respectively. Also, the physicochemical characterization (acid value, saponification value, iodine value, kinematic viscosity, flash point, pour point, ash content and cross caloric value) of produced biodiesel was conducted and the results indicted with values of 0.42 ± 0.01, 226 ± 0.57, 15.64 ± 2.13, 3.2 ± 0.02, 145, 2, 0.32 ± 0.82 and 10,748.0653, respectively. The results from the experiment shows that Dovyalis caffra seeds have more oil content with good oil quality for biodiesel production, which is a critical issue in the production process of qualified biodiesel .