Biodiesel is an alternative to conventional
petroleum diesel. This is a monoalkyl ester from
vegetable oil or animal fat. Biodiesel is derived from
many oilseeds such as rapeseed, palm oil and castor oil.
In this work biodiesel from Moringa Oleifera seed oil is
examined. Moringa oleifera oil was extracted on a
laboratory scale using a Soxhlet extractor, which was
connected to a reflux condenser via a heating jacket at
60C. After acid treatment, the oil is transesterified
using methanol, with potassium hydroxide as a catalyst.
The synthesized biodiesel is also characterized by flash
point, cloud point, pour point, kinematic viscosity and
amount of acid from biodiesel, which are 135C, 18C,
17C, 4.85 mm²s‾¹ and 0.26 mg KOH/g respectively. The
results are in accordance with ASTM D6751 and EN
14214 biodiesel standards.It was concluded that Moringa
oleifera oil has major prospect to be a source for
biodiesel production, which can serve as another means
of fuel for petro diesel owing to the number of common
qualities that they both possess.