Essay Sample about Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a renewable, biodegradable fuel derived from vegetable oils or animal fats, making it a green alternative to petroleum-based diesel (Ref 1). Biodiesel is continually used today due to its renewability, high yield, reduced carbon emissions and lower amounts of greenhouse gases (Ref 3). According to the claim “esterification… has made biodiesel what it is today” suggests that without the esterification reaction the use of biodiesel would not be possible. 

Biodiesel is converted from oil in a process called transesterification, in which a triglyceride reacts with an alcohol to form esters (ref 2). An ester is an organic compound that contains a carbonyl attached to an oxygen, which is bonded to another carbon, (Ref 3). In the transesterification process the ester made is formed from the reaction of a triglyceride with a short-chain alcohol to form glycerol and biodiesel (Ref 2). The structural formula of a typical biodiesel molecule is shown in Figure 1.

While fossil fuels are non-renewable, biodiesel is renewable, and therefore the growth of biodiesel production in the future is inevitable. There are two ways of sourcing biodiesel: enzymatic transesterification and chemical transesterification. Both methods use catalysts, however, enzymatic transesterification involves biological catalysts rather than chemical catalysts, which results in a purer form of biodiesel. 

To determine whether enzymatic transesterification is a better alternative than chemical transesterification it is important to understand the differences between the two processes. This raises the question:

Research Question

Is enzymatic synthesis in the transesterification of biodiesel a better alternative than chemical synthesis in terms of energy consumption, catalysts and yield? 

This review will use four studies from … … … and … that have been undertaken to determine if enzymatic transesterification is an alternative to chemical transesterification. The results of these studies will be compiled to investigate whether energy consumption, yield, and catalysts used are a better alternative in enzymatic synthesis of biodiesel than chemical synthesis.