Biodiesel: Heat of Combustion

Overview

Objectives/Goals My goal was to compare the heats of combustion of three different fuels I made from peanut oil, olive oil, and canola oil. Methods/Materials I used a mini camp stove, water, three different vegetable oils, separating funnel, digital thermometer, digital scale, methanol, sodium hydroxide, steel cans for calorimeter, paper towel and a paper clip to make the wick. I used the sodium hydroxide and methanol to transform the vegetable oil into bio diesel. Next, I used the camp stove to burn the fuel in a homemade calorimeter to calculate the heats of combustion. Results Peanut oil fuel's average heat of combustion was 13,774 joules per gram. Fuel from olive oil had an average heat of combustion of 9,939 joules per gram. The Canola oil diesel had an average heat of combustion of 14,022 joules per gram. Conclusions/Discussion Although the average heats of combustion for each fuel differed from each other, my experiment was inconclusive. Because my scale only rounded to the nearest gram, I can't be sure that the differences in heats of combustion aren't just due to the imprecision of my scale. Also, some issues with the procedure I used led to the fuel flaring up, so I'm not as confident in the accuracy of my results.

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Chemistry · Entry J0627

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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