Fatty Acid Methyl Ester Analysis of Some Oil Plants Found in Bihar, India: A Comparative Study

Today’s developmental world needs large amount of energy. Due to the limited fossil fuel source, there is need of some alternate fuel sources among which biodiesel from vegetable oil widely practiced. There is an increasing interest in India to search for suitable low cost alternative fuels that are Eco friendly. Biodiesel is a renewable, biodegradable and non toxic fuel. In this paper an attempt has been made to study and compare the oil percentage and Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) components of three non edible oil seed plants abundantly found in Bihar, India.

Oil from the seed kernel was extracted by solvent extraction technique through Soxhlet apparatus using n-hexane as solvent. Percentage oil content for Jetropha, Mahua and Castor are found around 76 %, 41% and 33% respectively. Further extracted oil were analysed by GC-MS for their FAME components. Palmitic, linoleic, oleic are most common fatty acid found among three.