Potential of biodiesel as a renewable energy source in Bangladesh

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.04.149Get rights and content

Abstract

The transportation, agricultural, and power sector of Bangladesh is largely dependent on fossil fuels that decrease day by day. The government has to import large volumes of fuel from foreign sources to meet the fuel demand for power production, causing a negative impact on the country’s economy. Finding an alternative to fossil fuels is becoming the most urgent issue. Biodiesel can thus be a destined source to future energy demands. Increasing the usage of biodiesel will also decrease the global problem of environmental pollution, as fossil fuels are considered to be the major source of harmful emissions. Biodiesel is renewable, bio-degradable, non-toxic, technologically feasible, and can be used as a bio-lubricant. In this study, the current energy scenario of Bangladesh, available potential biodiesel feedstocks, production process and engine fuel property, environmental impact, performance and emission characteristics on diesel engines, comparison of cost analysis, and future direction are discussed. Various research related to these feedstocks are performed in Bangladesh, which include an overview of biodiesel properties, engine performance, and emission parameters used in diesel engines. All types of biodiesel have similar functional properties compared with diesel fuel and can be successfully used in compression ignition engines. Biodiesel can thus serve as a subsequent replacement of non-renewable fossil fuels. Compared with diesel fuel, CO and HC emission were also low, but a slight increase in NOx was observed in some cases. One of the major advantages is that Bangladesh is a country with plenty of biodiesel feedstock sources, such as mustered, Jatropha curcas, rapeseed, sesame, castor, cottonseed, neem, algae, coconut, and groundnut. In conclusion, producing biodiesel from different feedstocks is greatly possible and can thus assist in future energy needs.

Introduction

In recent times, the continuous increase in energy demand for global industrialization and modernization has led to a non-renewable energy crisis. Considering that energy is a major factor for globalization, the awareness towards searching for renewable and sustainable alternative energy sources is increasing day by day. The current power scenario in Bangladesh is very critical as major power stations are operated with natural gas. Hence, this natural reserve will soon fall to an alarmingly low level if any other reserve is not discovered in the near future [1]. Bangladesh is already heavily dependent on importing crude oil from other countries, and during the fiscal year 2011/2012, approximately 1550232 Million tonne was imported [2]. The total import bill was US$125.50 billion to fulfill the energy demand in this fiscal year, which is a large setback for a developing country [2]. Household life and industrial production are suffering heavily because of insufficient electricity production resulting from gas supply shortage all over the country; this scenario also causes a regular load shedding problem that affects economic development [3]. A greater portion of power is produced from natural gas, but the generation capacity is not sufficient because of the gas supply shortage. Hence, the Government of Bangladesh is now concentrating on finding renewable sources of energy. Another disadvantage of using fossil fuel is the emissions produced from its combustion that has an adverse effect on human health and the environment, especially greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [4]. It causes global warming, the melting of polar ice sheets and caps, sea level rise and subsequent coastal inundations, as well as damage to agriculture and natural ecosystems [5]. For different hazardous emissions such as CO2, CO, SO2, NO2, and PM, visible smoke is produced by combustion of petro diesel, and Bangladesh is currently contributing 0.14% CO2 to the world’s total emissions [6]. Fossil fuel consumption is growing by more than 5% per year [4]. Utilization of renewable and sustainable energy may be the fruitful solution to solve several problems, including diminishing reserves, high price, import dependence, and ecological factor [7], [8], [9].

Biodiesel has drawn the attention of many researchers as a renewable energy resource because of its immense potential to be part of a sustainable energy mix in the near future. It is non-toxic, biodegradable, and more eco-friendly in nature, which has the quality to be used successfully as an alternative to diesel fuel in compression ignition engines [10], [11]. Biodiesel is produced from edible and non-edible vegetable oils, waste cooking oils, and animal fats [12], [13], [14]. Most vegetable oils have been considered as a potential renewable resource that is available in Bangladesh. Fuel from vegetable oil also emits less pollution than diesel fuels [15]. In this paper, the recently published research works highlighting the potential of biodiesel alternative to diesel as a renewable energy source in Bangladesh is reviewed. Available promising biodiesel feedstocks in Bangladesh include mustered, Jatropha curcas, rapeseed, sesame, castor, cottonseed, neem, algae, coconut, and groundnut [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24] that can be implemented to produce biodiesel. These biodiesel feedstocks have been awaiting sustainable production in recent years. Different properties such as calorific value, density, viscosity, flash point, pour point, boiling point, cloud point, and cetane number are also reported in this review. The Bangladesh government is encouraging the use of renewable energy sources to supply fuel for diesel engines primarily used in small irrigation pumping systems and electricity generators, and decrease fossil fuel dependence. The unemployment problem of Bangladesh has become a great concern presently because of overpopulation comparable with the lack of work area in the country [25]. The problems of using biodiesel in Bangladesh are: food security, lack of available technology and available lands to use produce biodiesel. Bangladesh has a huge population, almost over 150 million. In order to feed this huge amount of population, lots of land needed to harvest food. Thus, these lands cannot be used to produce biodiesel. Secondly, edible feedstock cannot be used to produce biodiesel. And lastly, state of the art biodiesel production technology needs to be introduced as soon as possible. At present there is actually no working projects running in Bangladesh for producing biofuels [26]. But in future some initiatives should be taken care of. According to Energy-Bangla, Japanese industrial giant Honda Denki Co. Ltd. has expressed its interest to invest up to US$1 billion in Bangladesh’s green power, biofuels and sugar sectors [27]. Many unused land areas can be found all over the country where commercial biodiesel plants can be built. Ferdous et al. [28] reported that, by using the available rail and road sides of Bangladesh 2387,500 t of non-edible oil seeds can be produced every year which will supply 1322,235 t oil leading with 1001,881 t biodiesel. Also, they reported that, if commercial agents are used to produce biodiesel, cost per liter of biodiesel will be less than 120 Taka (1.5 USD/Liter). The costs are: Raw oil cost (44.5–49.5 Taka/L), H2SO4 (0.5–0.6 Taka/L), CH3OH (94–113 Taka/L, recovery 43–51 Taka/L). Aminul et al. [29] reported that, if 50% of the available land can used, Jatropha: 1.19 million tons, Castor: 0.15 million tons, Pithraj: 1.04 million tons can be produced annually. Sazdanoff et al. [30] reported that, 700, 285, 201, 126, 112, 99 and 62 Gallons of Algae, Coconut, Jatropha, Rapeseed, Peanut, Sunflower and Soybean biodiesel per acre can be respectively produced if the available lands are used. Thus using the potential sources for biodiesel production, dependency on imported oils can be reduced significantly. In addition, feedstock plantations could cause forestation and create ecological balance all over the country.

This paper focuses on the potential of biodiesel feedstock as a renewable energy source that can mitigate the current dependence on the fossil fuel source in Bangladesh. Various recent publications related to potential biodiesel feedstocks in Bangladesh, production process, and their engine fuel property, their impact on environment, performance, and emission characteristics on diesel engine, and comparison of cost analysis are reviewed in this paper.

Section snippets

Energy scenario in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is located in the north-eastern part of South Asia; it is a very densely populated country, and only 33% of the total population is electrified that still suffers severe load shading [31]. Energy is the main driving force for the economic development of a country.

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is known as fatty acid methyl ester which can be used as an alternative fuel for diesel engines is produced by chemically reacting a vegetable oil or animal fat with an alcohol such as methanol using transesterification process [39], [40]. In this process a catalyst, usually a strong base, is needed, such as sodium or potassium hydroxide, and produces new chemical compounds called methyl ester which is referred as biodiesel. Biodiesel is non-explosive, non-flammable biodegradable,

Potentiality of various biodiesel feedstocks in Bangladesh

Different types of oil seed crops or trees available in Bangladesh may be used to produce biodiesel as alternative to diesel as follows:

Major physical and chemical properties of biodiesel feedstocks in Bangladesh

Properties such as density, viscosity, flash point, cloud point, pour point, higher heating value, CN, oxidation stability, water content, sulfur content, acid value, Conradson carbon residue, and lubricity characterize the properties of biodiesel. Engine performance and emission significantly depend on the different biodiesel properties, chemical composition, and fatty acid composition [90], [110], [111], [112]. Table 8 shows the main physical and chemical properties of biodiesel from both

Biodiesel as diesel engine fuel

Biodiesel is used in compression-ignition diesel engine, as biodiesel has almost similar properties compared with diesel fuel. Table 9 shows the diesel engine emission result at different rotations per minute by various researchers using biodiesel feedstock in Bangladesh and Malaysia. Biodiesel can be produced from several different feedstocks of edible and non-edible vegetable oils or animal fats. The energy value of biodiesel varies from 39 MJ/kg to 41 MJ/kg and slightly lower compared to those

Price comparison of biodiesel feedstocks

Currently, as the production cost of biodiesel is higher than that of petro-diesel fuel, production is not going commercialized as shown in Table 10. Some certain factors such as cost of raw materials, process technology, chemicals, and plant [144] are involved in the economic performance of biodiesel where the prime cost is raw material cost according to some researchers [145], [146]. Geographic area, base stick, crude petroleum price, variability in crop production from season to season are

Recommendation

Currently, biodiesel production is expanding rapidly around the world due to energy security and environmental concern. However, there are some challenges to produce biodiesel and use as alternative to diesel engine fuel. These challenges include feedstock prices, availability, biodiesel properties, performance, emission and combustion characteristics. Significant research and technological development are needed on combustion efficiency of biodiesel in Bangladesh as no research found that was

Conclusions

In the transport and industry sector, currently, biodiesel is rapidly becoming popular fuel. Although biodiesels are produced and exported by many countries around the world, these countries are not health and environment conscious. They are not using biodiesel to a great extent. Biodiesel produced from feedstock available in Bangladesh was critically reviewed in this paper. From the review the following findings are summarized:

  • The crisis for energy in Bangladesh is heading towards a severe

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to appreciate University of Malaya for financial support through Grant no. CG060-2013 and High Impact Research grant titled: Clean Diesel Technology for Military and Civilian Transport Vehicles having Grant number UM.C/HIR/MOHE/ENG/07.

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