In this study, the extracted oil of Pistacia lentiscus L. the Tunis region was extracted using supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) extraction containing different major components in the oil such as α-pinene (32%) and terpinene-4-ol (13%). The investigation of the effect of different variables on the extraction yield with 5% level of confidence interval showed that the CO2 pressure was the main significant variable to influence the oil yield. In order to better understand the phenomena, three parameters were considered to adjust all parameters of broken and intact cell (BIC) model: grinding efficiency (G), the internal mass transfer parameter ( ), and the external mass transfer parameter ( ), which were estimated by experimental extraction curves to calculate the diffusion coefficient. From an economic point of view, we found out that the high cost of production of the extracted oil was due to the low mass of extracted oil obtained from this type of plant.
13 March 2025 in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
The transesterification of waste cooking oils (WCO) with ethanol was investigated by means of potassium hydroxide (KOH) as catalyst. This work aimed to study the influences of catalyst concentration, temperature, ethanol to WCO molar ratio, reaction time, and stirring rate on the biodiesel conversion. Gas chromatography (GC) was used during the process of transesterification to determine the evolution of ethyl esters concentration with time. Biodiesel with maximum yield was obtained (92.5%) when 2 wt% KOH, temperature of 75°C, and ethanol/oil molar ratio of 11:1 were utilized.
2 October 2024 in ZAMM - Journal of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics / Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik