There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
Production of biodiesel is currently limited due to lack of economically beneficial
feedstocks. Suitability of municipal wastewater sludge and olive mill waste as feedstocks
for biodiesel production was evaluated. The various bio-waste sources were analyzed
for their oil content and fatty acid composition using conventional analyses complemented
with time domain (TD)-NMR analysis. TD-NMR, a rapid non-destructive method newly applied
in this field, yielded good correlations with conventional methods. Overall biodiesel
yields obtained by TD-NMR analysis were 7.05% and 9.18% (dry wt) for olive mill pomace
and liquid wastes, and 11.92%, 7.07%, and 4.65% (dry wt) for primary, secondary, and
anaerobically stabilized sludge, respectively. Fatty acid analysis indicated fundamental
suitability of these agro-industrial waste resources for biodiesel production. Evaluation
of bio-waste materials by TD-NMR revealed the potential of this tool to identify waste-oil
sources cost effectively and quickly, supporting expansion of a sustainable biodiesel
industry in Israel and other regions.
(c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.