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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Bio-oils Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #249511

Title: Biodiesel Derived from a Source Enriched in Palmitoleic Acid, Macadamia Nut Oil

Author
item Knothe, Gerhard

Submitted to: Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/16/2010
Publication Date: 5/16/2010
Citation: Knothe, G.H. 2010. Biodiesel Derived from a Source Enriched in Palmitoleic Acid, Macadamia Nut Oil [abstract]. Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Oil Chemists' Society. p. 72.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Biodiesel is an alternative diesel fuel commonly produced from commodity vegetable oils such as palm, rapeseeed (canola) and soybean. These oils generally have fatty acid profiles that vary within the range of C16 and C18 fatty acids. Thus, the biodiesel fuels derived from these oils possess the common problems of poor cold flow and oxidative stability with varying severity. An approach to improving these technical problems facing biodiesel is to utilize feedstocks with inherently different fatty acid profiles. Decanoic and palmitoleic acids are candidate fatty acids for enrichment in fatty acid profiles to improve biodiesel fuel properties. While biodiesel from an oil (cuphea) containing approximately 65% decanoic acid was described previously; in this work, a feedstock moderately enriched in palmitoleic acid, macadamia nut oil, was utilized as biodiesel feedstock. Two macadamia oils with slightly varying palmitoleic acid content (15-20%) were used and the properties of the resulting biodiesel fuels determined. Although some differences were observed for biodiesel from the two macadamia feedstocks, at the present levels of palmitoleic acid in macadamia nut oil, enhancement of biodiesel fuel properties compared to biodiesel from commodity oils did not occur, likely due to the slight content of saturated C20 and C22 fatty acids. This highlights the necessity of reducing long-chain fatty acids to small amounts and increasing amounts of desirable fatty acids in order to improve biodiesel fuel properties.