Biodiesel Production from Plant Seed Oil - A Review

Recent environmental and economic concerns have prompted resurgence in the use of biofuels throughout the world, there is increase in CO2 emissions as well as several other air pollutants., considering sustainability, biodiesel has proven to be a good candidate to meet increasing energy requirements for internal combustion engines since they are renewable, have similar properties to petrodiesel and seems to be an ideal solution for global energy demands. Edible and non-edible seed oil crops have proven to be recognized sources of vegetable oils for biodiesel production, although the production process has been developed for edible seed oil , this work advocates for its use in non edible plant seed oil and agricultural wastes so that the feedstock will not compete with food supply in the long term leading to high production cost. Hence this review highlights the production of biodiesel from plant seed oil , some of the factors that influences its production, the criteria the pure biodiesel must meet, the conversion techniques and the various methods of production acknowledging transesterification as the preferred choice.