Yi-Hsu Ju, Andrea C. M. E. Rayat
There is a growing interest in the development and utilization of alternative fuels. This is driven by several factors, which include environmental concerns regarding the further use of petroleum fuels, energy security and independence, growth, and commitment to international accords such as the Kyoto Protocol. Currently, the widespread production and use of such alternative fuels as biodiesel is hindered by its uncompetitive price against petroleum-based diesel fuel. The high cost of raw material, usually refined vegetable oils, largely contributes to the expensive cost of biodiesel. There is now an intensifying search for a cheaper raw material for biodiesel production. One of these is rice bran oil. Rice, which is the staple food of more than half of the world’s population, is produced at a rate of about 600 megatons per year. Rice bran is a by-product of rice milling. Given the magnitude of annual rice production, an enormous amount of bran is available. Unfortunately, bran is considered a low-value material and mostly treated as an agricultural waste. This chapter shows how oil from rice bran can be used as a feedstock for biodiesel production. Rice bran also contains protein, and other important bioactive compounds, if harvested from the bran, can be sold as high-value by-products. In this regard, this chapter also highlights conditions for the retention and subsequent recovery of important bioactive compounds in rice bran after biodiesel production. When integrated into the process economics, the sale of these valuable co-products from rice bran processing to biodiesel is one possible way of reducing the price of biodiesel. © 2009 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan; Department of Chemical Engineering, niversity of San Carlos – Technological Center, Cebu City, Philippines
