LCA studies for alkaline and enzyme catalyzed biodiesel production from palm oil

Pogaku Ravindra, Subash Saralan, Rahmath Abdulla

School of Engineering and Information Technology Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Sabah, Malaysia.

DOI: 10.4236/abc.2012.24042                

Abstract

The life cycle analysis of biodiesel production from palm oil (PO) involves 3 stages: 1) Cultivation; 2) Oil Extraction and 3) Transesterification of PO. There are several different approaches to the production process. The enzyme catalyzed process, was investigated and its environmental performance was compared with the conventional alkali-catalyzed process by using life cycle analysis (LCA). The enzyme catalyzed process is found to be technically a simpler production process and offers the production of less environmentally damaging wastes.

Keywords

Biodiesel; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); Enzyme Catalyzed Process

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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