Biodiesel is associated with vegetable oil or animal fat-based diesel fuel having a long-chain alkyl ester. Biodiesel is produced by the chemical reaction of lipids like vegetable oil, soybean oil, or animal fat with an alcohol producing fatty acid esters. Biodiesel is basically a drop-in biofuel and, thus, meant to be used in standard diesel engines and is different from the vegetable and waste oils used to fuel converted diesel engines. It can be used either on its own or by blending it with petrodiesel in proportions.
Biodiesel gives superior lubricating properties and cetane ratings compared to low sulphur diesel fuels. Fuels with higher lubricity can increase the shelf life of high-pressure fuel injection equipment that relies on the fuel for its lubrication. Biodiesel calorific value is 37.27 MJ/kg, which is 9% lower than regular Number 2 petrodiesel. Today, most of the biodiesel that is manufactured is from waste vegetable oil sourced from restaurants, chip shops, and commercial food manufacturers such as Birdseye, etc. It comes with many environmentally beneficial properties. The main advantage of biodiesel is that it can be described as carbon neutral. That means the fuel creates no net output of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide or CO2.
