Synthesis of biodiesel from chicken's skin waste by homogeneous transesterification

Poultry skin waste is considered to be a promising source of biodiesel. However, this source presents an environmental threat as it is being discharged into landfills without any treatment. We studied the feasibility of biodiesel production from poultry skin waste. Two-step extraction of lipids from chicken's skin was developed and gave 97.5% yield using the optimum time and temperature. Esterification was then optimised to remove free fatty acids (FFA) where the ideal parameters were 65 degrees C during 30min with a molar ratio of methanol to oil of (1:3) and 1% of H2SO4. The third step was the transesterification which was performed using 60 degrees C and 300-600 rpm agitation for 1 h, with 1% basic catalyst and 1:3 (molar ratio) of methanol to oil. The biodiesel (FAME), was characterised using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) followed by chemical and physical analyses such as iodine number, acid number, flash point and cetane number. The total conversion was obtained using above conditions and most of the studied proprieties of produced biodiesel meet the EN14214 standard. This is an extremely encouraging result, offering a good source of biodiesel by valuing poultry skin waste.