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Biodiesel From Animal Fat

TerraGreen

May 2018

An Environment-Friendly Alternative to Conventional Fuel

Animal fats and oils are lipid materials derived from animals. This includes beef tallow, pork lard, and chicken fat. Animal fat is currently added to pet food and animal feed, and used for industrial purposes such as soap making. In this article, Dr S Talukder, Dr Arvind Soni, and Dr Sagar Chand discuss that animal fats are attractive feedstocks for biodiesel because their cost is substantially lower than the cost of vegetable oil. Animal fat feedstocks can be made into high-quality biodiesel that meets the standard specifications for biodiesel. The authors also briefly discuss the process of biodiesel production from animal fat while also highlighting the drawbacks and challenges to using animal fat feedstocks for producing biodiesel.

Fossil fuels support the majority of global energy needs, and the demand for these sources continues to rise, despite the efforts to shift towards renewable sources of energy. Due to the limited supply of fossil fuels there is a persistent search for alternative renewable energy sources, such as biofuels (biodiesel, bio-ethanol, etc.). Biofuels can be considered a renewable source of energy as long as they are based on sustainable biomass production. The advantages of biodiesel over conventional diesel fuel are its portability, ready availability, renewability, higher combustion efficiency, lower sulphur and aromatic content, higher cetane number, higher biodegradability, better emission profile, safer handling, besides being non-toxic. These characteristics make it more greener and eco-friendly than diesel.