BIODIESEL: A PROMISING ALTERNATE TO CONVENTIONAL FUELS

The extensive utilization of non-renewable resources indicates the exploitation of energy resources and this leads to increase in petroleum-based fuels prices. Thus, it is the need of hour to find out a clean, suitable and promising alternate to conventional fuels. The desired features of an alternative fuel source are its availability, renewability, lesser dependency on non-renewable resources with lesser or zero pollution. Biodiesel is one of the promising alternates to conventional fuels and is increasingly gaining importance owing to severe environmental consequences of petroleum fuelled diesel engines and the increasing stress on rapidly dwindling petroleum resources. This review article gives an overview of characterization of biodiesel; feedstocks for biodiesel production with their advantages and disadvantages.