Abstract:
Currently, vegetable oils are of interest as a bio-based feedstock in the production of environmentally friendly alternative fuel due to vegetable oil has less effects on the environment and the future use of biofuels has been increasing in popularity. The high viscosity of vegetable oils and that its viscosity is necessary to be reduced before using in engines. Microemulsification is an emerging technology to formulate mixtures of vegetable oil, surfactant and ethanol to thermodynamically stable and homogeneous. Thus, this research studied the microemulsification used to produce biofuels. Three components are vegetable oil (used palm oil, palm oil and soybean oil) blend with diesel or biodiesel at a ratio of 50:50% (v/v) with 75 percent by weight, surfactant (dehydol LS1, dehydol LS5, oleyl alcohol and methyl oleate) mixed with cosurfactant (octanol and ethylene glycol butyl ether) at a ratio of 1:8 with 5 percent by weight, and ethanol purity commercial grade volume of 20 percent by weight. Microemulsion biofuels used to study for their properties and analyzed by standard ASTM of diesel no.2 and biodiesel. The results show that the microemulsion biofuels properties were met the biodiesel fuel standard. For engine exhaust emission test, found that used palm oil with less exhaust emissions compared to palm oil and soybean oil. Therefore, vegetable oil by microemulsion process can be a promising technique for producing an alternative fuel