An evaluation of Moringa peregrina seeds as a source for bio-fuel

Abstract

tMoringa peregrina leaves and pods are known for their medicinal and nutritional values. In this paper, M.peregrina seeds had been investigated for the first time as a potential source for bio-fuel. Physical charac-terization revealed that M. peregrina seed is composed of about 59% kernel and 41% husk. The kernel wasfound to contain about 38% of oil. Higher heating values of 18.21, 20.65 and 39.99 MJ/kg were obtainedfor M. peregrina seed husk, M. peregrina seed oil cake and M. peregrina seed oil respectively. Thermo-chemical characteristics and thermal behavior of M. peregrina seed husk and M. peregrina seed oil cakein an inert atmosphere of N2were studied. The initial results showed that M. peregrina seed husk and M.peregrina seed oil cake could potentially produce energy through thermochemical conversion processes.Low iodine value (67.73 g I2/100 g oil) and high saponification value (187.53 mg KOH/g oil) were reportedfor M. peregrina seed oil. Thus, a high cetane number (60.16) was reported for M. peregrina seed-oil-basedbiodiesel. M. peregrina seed oil was found to contain very low free fatty acids (0.35%), rendering its con-version into biodiesel possible in one step by alkaline catalyst. A high fraction of unsaturated fatty acidswas observed in M. peregrina seed oil (81.24%) while 76.92% of M. peregrina seed oil was contributed bymonounsaturated fatty acids with oleic acid as the major component (72.19%). Therefore, high thermo-oxidative stability was observed in M. peregrina seed oil. However, its significant fraction of long-chainfatty acids (C20:0 + C20:1 + C22:0) (6.76%) may affect the cold flow properties of the derived biodiesel.We concluded from this study that M. peregrina is a potential source for both bio-fuel and food