Recycling of Used Vegetable Oils from Cafeteria’s of Arba Minch City for Bio-Fuel Production

Abstract

The initial survey was done at Arba Minch, Ethiopia. It is found that there are many cafeterias and restaurants around Arba Minch are using a considerable amount of vegetable oils for preparing varieties of food and snacks. After deep-frying of foods they are disposing the used cooking oil (UCO) down the sink and also discharged into the water bodies and become the cause of water living organisms. It is estimated that approximately around 430 liters of Used cooking oil (UCO) arise from catering annually in each cafeteria of Arba Minch town. In this concern, the raw UCO use to obtain more than 79% as bio feedstock for the production of biodiesel at the end of the process. An even enormous amount of collectible household cooking oil waste is also likely available. Hence, this research was focused on making a profit of community in addition to save the environment from the used cooking oil. The appropriateness of used cooking oil has been set up in this research. In this study, used cooking oil has been collected, purified, transesterified and properties of transestefied used cooking oil biodiesel (TUCO) were studied and it is evident that the properties obtained were nearer to the conventional existing diesel. The performance characteristics of a single-cylinder, four-stroke, direct injection diesel engine, fuelled with TUCO are analysed and compared to local diesel results. The research has been done at a constant speed of 3500 rpm, and then it was gradually loaded. Also, the experiments were conducted at different loads, by increasing torque, for compression ratios of 22:1 and injector pressure of 210 bar. Among the two samples (Diesel, TUCO tested), the best performance is achieved by biodiesel. Furthermore, the end values revealed that the test engine performance such as brake thermal efficiency, energy consumption, and fuel consumption is similar to diesel, when fuelled by transesterified used cooking oil reduction of power-output by 5.51% was noticed. The total fuel and specific fuel consumption also perceived to be an increased by 0.331% and 0.064%. Even though TUCO performance is reduced it may be improved by varying different engine parameters and by additives.