Waste Cooked Oil as an Alternative Feed Stock for Bio-Diesel Production in Indian Railways

Knowing the enormous potentialities of bio-diesels, Indian Railways has taken up challenge to produce it from plantation of Bio-fuel plants (Jatropha) on a large scale in the vast vacant lands throughout the country including the track sides, and decided to run its Diesel locomotives, road vehicles and even generator sets on it to minimise the air pollution extent in the IR premises. But due to non-availability of regular feedstock (Non-edible oils), it is difficult to continue the same. In this work ,bio-diesel was prepared through the transesterification from waste cooked oils(WCO), collected from Star hotels in and around new Delhi and from the canteen of Queen's Road Hostel, E. Railway Jamalpur. Methyl alcohol with KOH as a catalyst was used for the process. The best result was found at the temperature of 65°C with a reaction time of 1 hour. The biodiesel was characterized by its physical and fuel properties including viscosity, flash point, carbon residue, water and sediments content according to ASTM Standards and found to be comparable as per IS: 15607/05.Production of biodiesel from waste cooked oils for the diesel substitute is particularly important because of the decreasing trend of the economical oil reserves, environmental problems caused due to fossil fuel use and the high price of petroleum products in the international markets.