Laboratoire de Thermodynamique et Physico-Chimie du Milieu, UFR Sciences Fondamentales et Appliquées ; Université Nangui Abrogoua ; 02 Bp 801 Abidjan 02, Côte d'Ivoire
The use of vegetable oils as fuel for diesel engines has known many approaches since the implementation of this type of engine. Existing engines had a loss of power and some cold ignition problems, when it was tested with only crude oil. Consequently, it was immediately realized that we had to make special motors or to produce biofuels whose characteristics are similar to diesel. Thus, the present study focused on comparing the methanolysis and ethanolysis in alkaline-catalysed by studying the relationship between the density, viscosity of biodiesel with their molecular structure. It appeared from this study that biodiesel derived from the methanolysis is closer to conventional diesel than biodiesel derived from the ethanolysis. Furthermore, analysis of the molecular structures of these fluids explained the difference of the density and kinematic viscosity of the biodiesels. However, it has been shown through the study that these two biodiesels are Newtonians.