Biodiesel technology and management from used cooking oil in Thailand rural areas

Abstract

The small-scale demonstrated biodiesel production unit from used cooking oil project have been design and constructed for use in rural areas in Nhong Pling municipality, Nakorn Sawan province, located in the Northern region of Thailand under full government subsidization. In this paper, the used cooking oil potential quantity has been surveyed. From the results, we found that there are 1.3 million litres of used cooking oil per year in Nakorn Sawan. Most are from cooking activities in residential sector and restaurant. The used cooking oil can turn to biodiesel by using transesterification processes which converted triglycerines to biodiesel by mixing it with methanol to be fatty acid methyl esters. Biodiesel can be used for various proposes; e.g. diesel substitution in trucks, agricultural machines, or fuel oil substitution in thermal generation. This paper also discussed the management and flows of biodiesel, from the sources to the end-users.