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Abstract
Four different continuous process flowsheets for biodiesel production from virgin
vegetable oil or waste cooking oil under alkaline or acidic conditions on a commercial
scale were developed. Detailed operating conditions and equipment designs for each
process were obtained. A technological assessment of these four processes was carried
out to evaluate their technical benefits and limitations. Analysis showed that the
alkali-catalyzed process using virgin vegetable oil as the raw material required the
fewest and smallest process equipment units but at a higher raw material cost than
the other processes. The use of waste cooking oil to produce biodiesel reduced the
raw material cost. The acid-catalyzed process using waste cooking oil proved to be
technically feasible with less complexity than the alkali-catalyzed process using
waste cooking oil, thereby making it a competitive alternative to commercial biodiesel
production by the alkali-catalyzed process.