Waste Fish Oil Biodiesel Used as Source of Renewable Fuel in Iran

IRAN - A study by Tarbiat Modares University, Iran, is looking at the prospect of waste fish oil as a sustainable energy source for biodiesel production in Iran.

With increasing demand for fossil fuels in the world, reduced fossil fuel's resources and pollution problems, Iran is looking at new ways to introduce alternative renewable resources.

Fish wastes have previously been considered as loss, but now new research looks at how extracted oil from wastes of aquatic resources can produce biodiesel.

The study examines the main advantages of using waste fish oil for biodiesel production and the design and manufacturing of an oil extraction machine is also introduced.

Experiments showed that through the extraction process, 53 per cent of fish wastes was in liquid phase and the extracted oil was about 11 per cent of the total weight of the fish wastes (using of 7 kg of wastes, about 3.71 kg liquid was extracted and 0.8 l (768 g) oil was isolated).

Biodiesel fuel was then produced from the extracted fish oil after the chemical reaction. In the present investigation, for each liter of produced fish oil, 0.9 litres of biodiesel was produced.