الفهرس 
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Abstract
The depletion of fossil fuel and its association with the pollution problems forces the world to look for alternative ways for energy production. The most important alternative source of energy is a biofuel that is a type of fuel produced from natural resources such as agriculture crops, agriculture wastes, used cooking oil, animal fat, and algae.
Chapter 1 introduces the biodiesel and its importance. Biodiesel is a type of biofuel that has a composition and combustion properties similar to petrodiesel fuel. Biodiesel is an eco- friendly fuel as it characterizes over petrodiesel by the low aromatics content, sulfur content, harmful emissions, and pour point. The main hurdle to the commercialization of biodiesel is its high sale price because of the high feedstock cost. The feedstock cost of accounts for 80 % of the total cost of biodiesel fuel. Therefore, the use of cheap low-quality feedstock can lower the biodiesel price to a competitive price. The cheap low-quality feedstock often contains a large amount of free fatty acids (FFAs), which react with the base catalyst in the transesterification reaction to produce soap, form emulsions, reduce the yield, and deteriorate the biodiesel quality. Therefore, the treatment step is required to reduce FFAs content to an acceptable level that the base transesterification reaction can be applied.
Chapter 2 outlines the previous related works in the transesterification reaction, its types, and the different treatment processes of the high FFAs feedstocks. This work aims to treat the low-quality feedstocks so a wide range of cheap feedstocks can be used without a limitation as well as reducing biodiesel production cost.
Chapter 3 shows the materials used in applying the experiments and illustrates the detailed steps of the experimental work. The transesterification reaction was applied directly on the feedstocks that had FFAs below 1 wt. % while the glycerolysis treatment was applied on the low-quality feedstocks using the pure glycerol or the crude glycerol -the co-product from the transesterification reaction- in the presence of potassium hydroxide (KOH) as a catalyst. The low-quality feedstocks were low, moderate, and high FFAs feedstock.
Chapter 4 reveals the results obtained from the experimental work. It also discusses and interprets the effect of factors on both the transesterification and glycerolysis reaction and the economic study of the biodiesel project. The glycerolysis treatment could successfully decline the FFAs content to appropriate levels for base catalyst transesterification at the same time utilizing the crude glycerol from the transesterification reaction. The glycerolysis treatment was applied at a temperature of 65 °C, while the glycerol amount, the catalyst concentration, and the reaction time differed according to the concentration of free fatty acids amount in the feedstock. The base transesterification reaction was applied on different feedstocks, which were home waste oil (H WO), treated feedstocks and animal fat feedstock to produce biodiesel. The optimum reaction conditions were a methanol to oil molar ratio 6:1, a catalyst concentration of 0.5 wt. %, a reaction time of 2 h, and a temperature of 60 °C. The percentage of the produced biodiesel ranged between 84% and 98% according to the type of feedstock. The specifications of the resulting biodiesel are acceptable according to the ASTM-6751. The Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) technique was used to ensure the conversion of raw materials to biodiesel.
The cost estimation study was performed on a biodiesel plant with a capacity of 250 thousand tons of biodiesel per annum based on the operating assumptions resulted from the experimental part of the glycerolysis treatment reaction and the transesterification reaction. The study found that the biodiesel plant would achieve a positive net come and crucial profit for all types of feedstocks.