Roger A. Korus, Dwight S. Hoffman Narendra Barn,
Charles L. Peterson, and David C. Drown
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83843
Background
Vegetable oils have attracted attention as a potential renewable resource for the production of an
alternative for petroleum-based diesel fuel. Various products derived from vegetable oils have been proposed as an alternative fuel for diesel engines, including neat vegetable oil, mixtures of vegetable oil
with petroleum diesel fuel, and alcohol esters of vegetable oils. Alcohol esters of vegetable oils appear to
be the most promising alternative. Vegetable oils are triglycerides &lycerin esters] of fatty acids; alcohol
esters of fatty acids have been prepared by the transesterification of the glycerides, wherein linear,
monohydroxy alcohols react with vegetable oils in the presence of a catalyst to produce alcohol esters of
vegetable oils [AEVO] and glycerin as a by-product (Fig. 1). AEVO when used as an alternative diesel
fuel has been identified as a “biodiesel”.