TITLE:
Comparative Yeild and Oil Quality of Toxic and Non-Toxic Mexican Jatropha curcas Grown in the Same Agroclimatic Conditions
AUTHORS:
Khandual Sanghamitra, Ramirez Victorin Oramas, Rout Nutan Prasad
KEYWORDS:
Biodiesel; Toxic; Biofuel; Transesterification
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.5 No.2,
January
24,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Jatropha curcas brings attention across the developing world for
biodiesel production since it grows in tropical and subtropical climates with
no other competing food uses. This crop is gaining popularity in Mexico for
biofuel production. Currently, there are not many reports on the native
varieties and their yield to estimate the feasibility of the particular genetic
resource to use it as an economic crop. So in this part of work an agronomical
evaluation of yield, oil content, fatty acid types and biodiesel conversion from
the two native varieties of Jatropha
curcas from Mexico were compared while being produced in the same
agro-climatic condition. The varieties used were based on the phorbol ester
content like toxic and nontoxic varieties collected from Yucatan and Veracruz.
It was found that the oil content in the seeds of toxic variety was 57% and oil
content of the nontoxic variety was 54% and
also the seed yield is higher. The fatty acid content also varies among the two
varieties like 21% and 23% in toxic and nontoxic varieties respectively.
Again in the nontoxic variety the content of monosaturated fatty acid was
higher, which suggests that better quality
biodiesel may be expected from this genotype. Transestrification of the two
kinds of oil was done using KOH as a catalyst, but no significant difference
was observed in the conversion of biodiesel among the two types of oil from the
two genotypes.