One step transesterification of Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) lipid for biodiesel production

Abstract

Biodiesel is a fuel that comprised of monoalkyl esters of long chain fatty acid that derived from animal fat or vegetable oil can substitute fossil fuels. In this research, the Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) was evaluated for biodiesel production due to high fat content. There are many type of transesterification that being used to produce biodiesel which were one-step transesterification and two-step transesterification. As the conventional method of biodiesel production contain more steps and use high energy which quite expensive, one-step transesterification way s demonstrated in this research by using cosolvent that mixed with methanol to increase biodiesel yield. Based on result, n-hexane was chosen as the best cosolvent. Next, three reaction factors such as n-hexane to methanol volume ratio, catalyst loading and reaction time were optimized using Response Surface Method (RSM). 39.21% of biodiesel yield was obtained at n-hexane-methanol volume ratio of 1:3, catalyst loading of 1.2 ml and reaction time of 90 min. Last but not least, the biodiesel was undergone analysis by FTIR. Both biodiesel sample from OFAT and RSM proved the presence of ester carbonyl functional group in FAME at wavelength of 1745.7 cm-1. Therefores , this research was suggested that the one-step transesterification method by using n-hexane as cosolvent can be good potential method for high biodiesel production from BSFL biomass thus can lower the cost in fewer step.