Valorisation of Algerian agro-wastes as renewable biofuels: Impact of using microwave-assisted method on lipid extraction

Abstract

Fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change, representing about 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. Given the environmental impact and the high prices around the world, finding an alternative solution has become necessary at the present time. Biodiesel, as a renewable energy, is considered one of the possible solutions to reduce these emissions since the CO2 emitted during combustion will be recycled again by nature for feedstock production. This process is known as a closed carbon cycle. The cost of producing biodiesel depends on the nature of the raw material and the production method which involves both oil extraction and its transformation to biodiesel. Our contribution lies in feedstocks choice and extraction method, namely, we provide a comparison between conventional extraction methods including maceration, Soxhlet and microwave-assisted extraction as an innovative method. The latter technique has been developed for the extraction of lipids from different agro-wastes available in Algeria. Our results show that MAE of lipid has proven its effectiveness in terms of rapid and powerful heating, particularly regarding extraction time, which was 1/6 and 2/3 of SE and ME extraction time respectively. The use of different extraction method has no obvious impact on the presence of functional groups, between dates' palm seeds and olive pomace lipids. However, it can be more significant when using ME.

Keywords

• soxhlet
• maceration
• microwave-assisted extraction
• biofuels