Abstract
Alternative fuel in the form of non-crude oil resources are drawing considerable attention as a result of shrinking oil reserves, increasing petroleum costs and the need to reduce emissions of harmful pollutants. Therefore, renewable energy has gained considerable attention to substitute fossil fuels. One of the promising renewable fuel is biodiesel where it has been used successfully in diesel engine to replace diesel fuel. Meanwhile, biodiesel also has potential to replace distillate diesel for gas turbine application. Nevertheless, inherited properties of biodiesel such as high density, surface tension and viscosity impede the fuel compatible for gas turbine application. Thus, in this research microwave distillation method has been deployed to produce second generation biodiesel from waste cooking oils. The improved biodiesel fuel that produced from microwave distillation method is called as “second generation biodiesel” (SGB) and it has shown promising results compared to first generation biodiesel. The fatty acids composition of second generation biodiesel has been evaluated in gas chromatography and the physical properties of second generation biodiesel have been compared with fossil diesel and first-generation biodiesel (FGB). The result shows properties of second generation biodiesel have been improved and meets the standard requirement of gas turbine fuel accordanceto ASTM D2880. The most notable is viscosity of second generation reduced to 4.8 mm2/s compared to neatfirst-generation biodiesel 6.6 mm2/s. Overall the properties of second generation biodiesel meets ASTM D2880 standard and more favorable for gas turbine.
