In the process of producing biodiesel in the pilot plant, corn oil,
fleshing oil and chicken fat were evaluated as feedstocks. Reaction
conditions were selected with taking into account of the properties
of feedstocks. Because the FFA levels of the animal fats were higher
than 1%, they were subjected to pretreatment reactions at the
beginning. After reducing the FFA level of the fats to below 1%,
transesterification reaction was completed with alkaline catalysts.
On the other hand, the corn oil methyl ester was produced by
transesterification due to having low content of FFA. Fuel properties
of pretreated oils and methyl esters were characterized after
each reaction and detailed characterizations of the methyl esters
were done to check the suitability to the biodiesel standards. These
properties have been discussed in the Section 3.4.