Techno‑spatial assessment of waste cooking oil for biodiesel production in Pakistan

摘要

This study presents a take on employing the principles of waste valorization to solve the long-standing problem of findingsustainable resources for biodiesel production. The biodiesel production has always met with a competition with foodsecurity and land use. This has limited the scope of the technology to laboratory experiments only. This study aims toassess the geospatial availability of waste cooking oil in Pakistan to map its biodiesel production potential. Owing to theresource posing no land use or food security challenges, a resource assessment using geographical information systemswas carried out. The waste cooking oil availability was estimated using the statistics on per capita edible oil consumptionwith a realistic consumption and collection factor applied to it. The available residual cooking oil was subjected tothe transesterification with a rather conservative conversion to the biodiesel at 66.25% to keep the estimates realistic.The study results in heat maps of all the different regions and provinces of the country. The findings suggest that Punjabprovince is the highest potential province with 249,260 tonnes of biodiesel production annually. Karachi district isthe highest potential district with a potential of 36,156 tonnes of biodiesel production in a year. The study paves waysfor investment sector in the study area to identify highest potential regions to invest in. It also motivates the scientificcommunity to step outside of experimental research on waste cooking oil’s biodiesel production potential and performresource assessments and techno-economic analyses on the technology for its widespread adoption.