Effect of Vegetable Oil Viscosity on Biodiesel

Vegetable oil is benign contribution to renewables owing to its reusability, sustainability, cost and environmental friendliness. These vegetable oils have many characteristic and properties that favors reaction stages needed to produce energy. The appearance, texture, impurities cloud point, pour point temperatures, viscosity and density of the fluid offer them as a good candidate viable for biodiesel production. Because one key challenge for efficient combustion of fluids is viscosity, this paper investigates vegetable oil viscosity and how it contributes to the production of biodiesel. The Vegetable oil used was tested between 313 -338k and confirmed that increasing temperature reduces the viscosity of oils and ultimately drives the production of biodiesel forward. The measured viscosities ranged from about 3.74 to 5.75 Centistokes (CST.). Fluids which undergo rapid deformation with heat tend to react faster when mixed with alcohol.