Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Analysis Of Biodiesel Quality Using Reversed Phase High-Performance Liquid Chromatography, Kellyann M. Murphy

Pomona Senior Theses

The alternative fuel biodiesel is produced from the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fat to fatty acid methyl esters. Pomona has a reactor on campus that can be used to run this reaction and produce biodiesel. The use of biodiesel has been found to lower air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, but can be potentially harmful to the engines if it contains impurities. This paper proposes a method using high-performance liquid chromatography to test the quality of biodiesel. This method utilizes instrumentation and materials that are available in Pomona College's Chemistry Department, requires very little sample preparation, and is …

Production Of Biodiesel From Oleaginous Organisms Using Underutilized Wastewaters, Valerie Godfrey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As part of the BioEnergy Team at Utah State Univeristy, my research objectives have been centered around the common theme of innovating new methods and
technology for producing biological compounds and, by means of chemical conversion and/or extraction, isolating new forms of biodiesel available for transportation fuel.
Within the broad scope of this project, I focused on the replacement of freshwater in cultivating such biological systems with wastewaters. If accomplished and correctly
applied, such research would reduce the environmental impact of biodiesel production by reducing the demand for freshwater. It also would reduce production costs by reducing the amount of …

1. Improving The Yield Of Biodiesel From Microalgae And Other Lipids. 2. Studies Of The Wax Ester Biosynthetic Pathway And Potential Biotechnological Application, Bradley D. Wahlen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The production of biofuels and oleochemicals from renewable sources offers an opportunity to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The work contained in this dissertation has focused on developing and improving methods for the production of biodiesel from non-traditional feedstocks and understanding biosynthetic pathways that result in the production of oleochemicals and fuels.

Pure vegetable oil can account for 70-80% of the total cost of biodiesel production. Many low-cost oils contain high amounts of free fatty acids, which are unsuitable for base-catalyzed transesterification. Herein an approach is described that efficiently accomplishes the simultaneous esterification and transesterification of both free fatty …

Ambient Ionization Mass Spectrometry Analysis Pertaining To Biofuel Process Development, Sushma Dendukuri

Online Theses and Dissertations

Mass spectrometry (MS) has undergone a revolution with the introduction of a new group of desorption/ionization (DI) techniques known collectively as Ambient Ionization mass spectrometry. Ambient ionization mass spectrometry allows for direct analysis of analytes and typically requires little or no sample preparation. Specifically, Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) has developed rapidly and allowed investigations to occur with the analysis of biomass after various pretreatments to determine the pretreatment biomass degradation efficiency. The degradation of the initial biomass structure is a very important step before other chemical treatments can occur to generate needed sugars. Since generated sugars aid in …