Can sunflower oil be used in biodiesel?
Biodiesel can be produced from any fat or oil such as sunflower oil, soybean oil, canola oil, palm oil, tallow to name a few through a refinery process called transesterification. It is recommended that the sunflower oil be refined and de-waxed before blending it with diesel fuel. Is sunflower oil a viable alternative in producing biodiesel? In the USA market, sunflower oil is priced at a premium to soybean and canola oils due to demand from the food processing industry. The price premium may make it prohibitive to use sunflower oil in biodiesel. Why the interest in sunflower oil for biodiesel? Sunflower is a high oil content seed and average yields can produce 600 pounds of oil per acre, considerably more than soybeans. There is a great deal of interest from local areas for construction of small processing facilities for sunflower biodiesel production. It is most important that processing equipment be analyzed very carefully for small press only facilities. In most cases a portion of
