EXTRACTION AND CHARACTERISTICS ANALYSIS OF JATROPHA (Jatropha curcas)

The world is getting modernized and industrialized by the day. Energy plays the key role for this socio-ecomonic development. But the extensive use of fossil energy sources are making the earth unstable and the resources are limited and decreasing gradually. This situation leads to seek an alternative source of fuel for a sustainable development. Biodiesel could be an alternative source of fuel. Jatropha (Jatropha curcas) seedis known well as a source biodiesel. However, the production of seed has limited it use in practical. High yielding variety of jatropha could make attention for biodiesel widely. Different variety of jatropha plants are grown at research field of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University. This study investigates the extraction and characteristics of Jatropha seed oil collected from the research field of BSMRAU,Gazipur during the period from October 2014 to June 2015 on the basis of some physical and chemical properties. The study was conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Agro processing, BSMRAU. Jatropha seed oil was extracted by chemical extraction method. N-hexane was used as solvent by refluxing in a Soxhlet apparatus. The oil content in seeds of Jatropha was found to be in the rage of 50-60% by weight. Some important properties of extracted oil were analyzed in this study such as moisture content, Calorific value, Acid value, Iodine value, Cetane number and saponification value. The density of oil was measured to be in the range of 0.80-0.90 gm cm^-3. The most important properties of any fuel is the calorific value. The calorific value of extracted oil was found to be 40±0.5 which is quite higher in the comparison with fossil fuel. Some other properties like iodine value was found to be in the range of 90-120 mg/gm, acid value was found to be in the range of 0.8-2.0 mg NaOH /gm, saponification value was found to be in the range of 170-190 mg KOH/gm oil and Cetane number was in the range of 48.07 to 56.75.The average cetane number was found to be 52 which indicated good combustion properties of fuel and it can be used in high speed diesel engine. This study gives basic information of relevance for biodiesel production using Jatropha seeds from various genotypes of BSMRAU.