With fossil fuels being consumed rapidly and increasing
concerns around greenhouse gas emissions, there is much
interest in using renewable feedstocks with low carbon dioxide
emission as an alternative energy source to petroleum-based
materials [1,2].
The sustainable production of biodiesel from
biomass has not only received much attention from many
academic researchers but has also caused many governments to
increase their production for economic and environmental
reasons [3].
However, the growing production of biodiesel
through the transesterification of triglycerides with methanol
has generated a large surplus of glycerol as major byproduct
(ca. 10 wt% of manufactured biodiesel). Many biodiesel production
factories view crude glycerol as a waste product and
dispose of surplus glycerol by incineration.