Disaster Risk Reduction through biodiesel from yellow oleander (Thevetia peruviana)

Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fossil-fuel combustion, is a greenhouse gas, which traps solar radiation in the atmosphere. This cause climate change and global warming issues. Biodiesel has gained increasing attention as an alternative to fossil fuels for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Yellow oleander (Thevetia peruviana) grows extensively in gardens as a decorative tree throughout Sri Lanka. The plant is a potential source of feed stock for biodiesel production as it produces fruit with two seeds with higher oil content as 49.6% (db) and it is a non-utilized oil crop without any economic value. The objective of this study is to produce biodiesel by transesterifying using extracting oil and to determine its properties. Yellow oleander oil with proper free fatty acid limit was pretreated with NaOH as catalyst and anhydrous methanol amount as 20% of oil volume. The produced yellow oleander methyl ester was characterized. It was observed as gross calorific value as 37.74 MJ/kg (ASTM D 240), flash point of 118°C (ASTM D 93), Kinematic viscosity at 40°C of 5.96 mm2/s (ISO 3105:1976), specific gravity of 0.8874 (ASTM D 1298) and density at 15°C of 887 kg/m3. All the tested parameters are within the accepted limits of the biodiesel thus making it an alternate fuel as transportation fuel for diesel engines.