Biodiesel Production Calculator

Used cooking oil accumulates free fatty acids and other breakdown products from the cooking process, which interfere with the transesterification reaction and reduce how much of the oil actually converts to biodiesel. This calculator models that as a lower fixed conversion rate for waste cooking oil versus fresh soybean or canola oil.

This calculator applies a single typical conversion rate for each oil type rather than modeling how methanol dosing affects actual reaction completeness -- Methanol Ratio is included as a reference figure for the typical range (15-25% of oil volume) used in real transesterification, but the yield and conversion outputs here don't respond to it.

No -- Biodiesel Yield is Oil Volume multiplied by the oil type's conversion rate (around 90-97% depending on oil type in this model), so the biodiesel output alone is always somewhat less than the input oil volume. The unconverted oil fraction, plus the added methanol that becomes part of the glycerin layer, together show up in the estimated Glycerin Byproduct output -- which is why Biodiesel Yield plus Glycerin Byproduct can add up to more than the original Oil Volume rather than exactly matching it.

This calculator estimates Glycerin Byproduct as roughly 18% of oil volume, modeling CRUDE glycerin as actually recovered in a biodiesel plant -- glycerol plus the leftover methanol, catalyst, and soaps carried along with it, not pure glycerol alone (which is closer to 7.6% of oil volume). In practice, that crude glycerin is typically either refined for use in soap, cosmetics, and other products, or disposed of as process waste, depending on the scale of the operation.