The study determines the possibility of producing biodiesel from peanut seed oil (Arachis hypogaea L.). Peanut seed oil was extracted using the soxhlet method and produced 43.94% of oil from1 kg of peanut seed using petroleum ether as an organic solvent. Obtaining the oil from the peanut seed, the researchers characterize the peanut seed oil produced from the peanut seed oil from the literature. The physical and chemical properties were determined and gave comparable results. The peanut seed oil was converted to biodiesel using the transesterification process. After converting to biodiesel, it was again characterized and compared to that of commercial biodiesel. The characteristics of the biodiesel produced were also comparable to that of the commercial biodiesel.
To test the biodiesel, time elapsed upon ignition of peanut biodiesel and commercial biodiesel was done by using an alcohol lamp. Three trials were done and gave different results. In the first trial 5 ml of peanut and commercial biodiesel were used. The second trial used 10 ml of each biodiesel and the third trial used the large amount of biodiesel which is 15 ml. Peanut biodiesel took the longest time and next is the commercial biodiesel. The results were comparable from each other using hypothesis testing and t-test. Therefore, peanut seed oil can be a potential source of biodiesel.
