Biodiesel is a renewable and biodegradable alternative green fuel for petroleum-based diesel. The major obstacle for the production of biodiesel at an industrial scale is the high production cost, which is related to the relative high price of the conventional ???1st generation feedstocks??? (refined vegetable oils) used. This problem can be addressed by using low cost feedstocks such as waste oils and fats. However, these feedstocks contain high amounts of free fatty acids (FFA) which cannot be used for the production of biodiesel using a traditional homogeneous alkali-catalyzed transesterification process. Furthermore, there is a great need to develop a green process which can be used for multiple feedstocks. This shows the universal ability of the process to be adopted as per availability of local feedstock. In this study, a single-step second generation heterogeneous-catalyzed process is developed to produce biodiesel from multi-feedstocks. Due to an increase in the commercial use of biodiesel and biodiesel blends, both ASTM D6751 and EN 14214 include the acid number (AN) as an important quality parameter. Currently, ASTM D974 and D664 analytical methods for acid number analysis of biodiesel are time consuming, expensive, and environmentally not friendly. Therefore, ASTM D974 has been modified and a green analytical method has been developed. This extensive study has demonstrated that this new method is a reliable method for the determination of AN and could be used for establishing the specifications of AN for biodiesel and biodiesel blends ranging from B1 to B20 in quality standards. The ASTM reference standard method D664, has major problems such as the use of excess toxic solvents, large sample size, mediocre reproducibility, tedious process for cleaning electrodes, and relatively long analysis time. Therefore, a new proposed method based on green chemistry approaches, has been developed to determine the acid number of biodiesel and biodiesel blends using small sample size and reduced toxic titration solvent. This proposed green analytical method could be used for the determination of AN of biodiesel and biodiesel blends in R&D as well as industrial quality control laboratories as a simple, time-efficient, cost effective and environmentally friendly method.

This project analyses the impact in the mechanical properties of Polyoxymethylene (POM) of three different blends of biodiesels: B0 with 0% of Rapeseed Methyl-ester (RME), B20 with 20% of RME and B100 with 100% of RME. Polyoxymethylene specimens have been subjected to an accelerated aging during 1600 hours at 85ºC. This is the equivalent to 20 years of life time. In addition, a thermal oxidation in air at the same temperature has been performed to check the impact of the temperature in the final degradation.Three different methods have been performed to calculate the diffusion rate, however and one of them has been selected for its reliable results. The second Fick´s law have been chosen to model the diffusion. The diffusion rate has been calculated for the B20 and B100 blend due to the B0 blend has a non-constant diffusion rate. B20 shows also some divergence while B100 fits the Fickian behaviour.A Finite Different approximation method has been used to predict the concentration profiles of the diffusion process of B20 blend. They have been compared with the results of the IR Microscope, with a clear misalignment between the expected and the actual values.Tensile tests have been done in different stages of the test to check the stress-strain behaviour of the specimens for each aging type. The most relevant parameter of degradation is the Elongation At Break (EAB), which decrease considerably a cause of the embrittlement. A study of the real stress-strain has been also done to assure the real behaviour of the material.A fracture surface study through Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Light Microscope has been done to assure the brittle behaviour with the aging and the changes in the structure of the material.The swelling behaviour has been also modelled, and the bases for a future FEM analysis have been exposed.

Energy consumption in the transport sector is expected to increase substantially over the coming decades. The uncertainty in the forecasts are relatively high regarding the size of the increase but reports from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) points to an increase of 56 percent between 2010 and 2040 (IEO2013, 2013, p. 9). World Energy Council forecasts an increase between 30 and 85 percent, depending on the impact of various factors such as market regulation, population growth, urbanization, and the availability of fossil energy (Global Transportation Scenarios 2050 (TSG 2050), 2011, p. 4-5). Some of this energy could come from advanced renewable fuels such as advanced renewable biodiesel. The commercialization of advanced renewable biofuels has however been slow even though the technology has long been considered mature for large scale production. External market factors that are frequently blamed for the lack of commercialization are lack of political support, low crude oil prices, high raw material prices, and notable profitability for producers of first generation biofuels. Previous studies further suggest that advanced biofuels are expensive to produce (Demirbas, 2010; Milbrandt et al., 2013) and that the companies operating in the industry hold high financial risks (Miller et al., 2013). This study examines the systemic financial risks as well as the estimated returns that the market places on companies active in the emerging advanced biodiesel industry. The results from the study indicate, contrary to previous studies and current external market factors that the systematic risks are not considerable higher for the advanced biodiesel industry than the market average or the established biofuel industry. This is despite the fact that oil prices have been low, raw materials prices high and that the uncertainty surrounding the political forms of support for the industry during the studied period have increased. This should have resulted in increasing rather than decreasing financial risk in relation to the previous studies of the advanced biofuel sector. Important factors that contribute to the results obtained in this study are circumstances that previous studies have completely disregarded, factors that may be beneficial for the studied companies. The studied firms are showing noteworthy profitability, access to substantial working capital, relatively low ratios between stock prices and cash flows. Furthermore, the analyzed companies have a business structure that other studies so far have completely ignored, e.g. they are structured as "biorefineries". This means the studied firms, similarly to conventional petroleum refineries, are producing and trading various products produced from the same raw material. The difference being that the analyzed firms use renewable raw materials rather than crude oil to produce the commodities. The firms thus possess an "option-based" diversification strategy which may be perceived by the market as a future real option. In contrast to focused firms these firms may simply change their business focus based on changes in prevailing external market factors or decreasing profitability in any part of the company. In accordance with the theories of the effective market hypothesis theory and random walk the market has access to all this available knowledge regarding these firms’ specific factors, pricing the risks on this knowledge these as well as prevailing external market factors. The results of the study suggest that the firm-specific factors in the studied companies may be more important than some of the considered external market factors in the pricing of financial systemic risks.

Zugl.: Rostock, Univ., Diss., 2006

Zugl.: Trier, Univ., Diplomarbeit, 2007

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-159).

Thesis (Ph. D., Biological and Agricultural Engineering)--University of Idaho, December 2007. / Major professor: Jon Van Gerpen. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online (PDF file) by subscription or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rowan University, 2006 / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95).