Abstract
Biodiesel fuel is the colloquial name for fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), Since it has some environmental benefits when used as an alternative diesel fuel, it is becoming more and more popular in the world, especially in Europe and the U. S. Although it can be derived from a wide variety of resources, waste cooking oil is the main fecdstock in Japan. It has also come to gain attention in Japan, however, it has not widely accepted vet because of its high production cost of the fuel. To overcome this hurdle, we proposed“noucatalytic alcoholysis method at normal pressures”to reduce the cost of FAME. Calculation results revealed positive energy balance of FAME production by a large-scale reactor, which produces 1000 kg of FAME per hour. In addition to estimating the price of FAME per kilograiri, we also evaluate the economic viability on 4 different financial cases to confirm the impact of expenditure for fcedstock on FAME production cost. We reached a conclusion that the costs of feedstock oil have a substantial effect on the final FAME price.
