Synthesis of Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) from Schizochytrium Marine Microalgae oil

Abstract

Fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) also called and accepted as biodiesel, obtained prominent importance in this new era as an alternate fuel for petro-diesel. Microalgae are identified as few of such feedstock for the production of biodiesel. Higher volumes of production per hectare area, fast growing ability and high oil contents are the major advantages of microalgae over the conventional oil yielding crops. Schizochytrium is one of marine microalgae and high lipid content of this microalga is ideal for production of biofuels. Also, Schizochytrium oil is found to have 0.1% free fatty acid content which is well within the recommended value for one-step alkaline transesterification. In this work, the synthesis of bio-diesel was carried out from Schizochytrium oil with the addition of potassium methoxide (a mixture of methanol and KOH). Aiming at the higher yield of FAME, essential amounts of methanol, catalyst, and reaction time were optimized. The yielding of FAME was confirmed by Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) for each trial of experiment. A conversion efficiency of 99.99% was observed through GC-MS analysis for a 30% v/v methanol, 0.4% w/v KOH and 90 min reaction time at reaction temperature of 60�C. The results were complemented by proton nuclear magneto resonance (1H NMR) spectra and it is found that the synthesized fuel properties are well within the limits of ASTM standards. � 2018 Elsevier Ltd.