A study on Biodiesel Characteristics of Tea Seed Oil extracted using Supercritical CO₂ Extraction

The purpose of this work was to examine the reaction time, reaction temperature, catalyst, and mixing ratio of methanol and Ungpo tea seed oil extracted from supercritical CO2 extraction method for optimization of the biodiesel production process variables. The optimum conditions for effective biodiesel production were obtained at 50 min of reaction time, 60°C of reaction temperature, 1.0% of KOH as catalyst, and mixed molar ratio 1:5 of tea seed oil and methanol, respectively. For evaluation of biodiesel produced from the optimum conditions, physicochemical properties were measured. Biodiesel production yield was a range of 97.14 and 97.79%. In the case of density, it was a range of 0.83 to 0.84, which was similar to standard value. When Ungpo tea seed oil's biodiesel was used, the iodine value was 111.25 g I2/100 g, which was about 5.4% lower than Jeju tea seed oil's biodiesel. Oxidative stability of Ungpo tea seed oil's biodiesel was found to be 7.58 hr, which was about 5.0% lower than Jeju tea seed oil. However, compared to the EU's biodiesel quality standard, it was increased by about 20.3%. CFPP of Ungpo tea seed oil's biodiesel was found to be -8.38 ∼ -7.84℃, which was almost similar as that of Jeju tea seed oil's biodiesel. These results indicated that Ungpo tea seed oil exracted from supercritical CO2 extraction might be a suitable raw material for the biodiesel production.