JATROPHA , Pilot Research Studies,

JATROPHA (Pilot Research Studies)

Source:http://www.dost.gov.pk/jatropha.php?ID=100

 

INTRODUCTION
Jatropha Curcas is a drought-resistant perennial, growing well in marginal/poor soil. It is easy to establish, grows relatively quickly and lives, producing seeds for 50 years. Jatropha the wonder plant produces seeds with an oil content of 37%. The oil can be combusted as fuel without being refined. It burns with clear smoke-free flame, tested successfully as fuel for simple diesel engine. The by-products are press cake a good organic fertilizer, oil contains also insecticide. It is found to be growing in many parts of the country, rugged in nature and can survive with minimum inputs and easy to propagate. Medically it is used for diseases like cancer, piles, snakebite, paralysis, dropsy etc. Jatropha grows wild in many areas of the world and even thrives on infertile soil. A good crop can be obtained with little effort. Depending on soil quality and rainfall, oil can be extracted from the jatropha nuts after two to five years. The annual nut yield ranges from 0.5 to 12 tons. The kernels consist of oil to about 60 percent.
Family: Euphorbiaceae English or Common Name: physic nut, purging nut; Kanana randa. Botanical Name: jatropha Curcas and Jatropha Gossypifolia.L.
Biophysical limits
Altitude: 0-500 m, Mean annual temperature: 20-28C, Mean annual rainfall: 300-1000 mm or more. Soil type: Grows on well-drained soils with good aeration and is well adapted to marginal soils with low nutrient content. On heavy soils, root formation is reduced. Jatropha is a highly adaptable species, but its strength as a crop comes from its ability to grow on very poor and dry sites.
Distribution and habitat
It is still uncertain where the centre of origin is, but it is believed to be Mexico and Central America. It has been introduced to Africa and Asia and is now cultivated world-wide. This highly drought-resistant species is adapted to arid and semi-arid conditions. The current distribution shows that introduction has been most successful in the drier regions of the tropics with annual rainfall of 300-1000 mm. It occurs mainly at lower altitudes (0-500 m) in areas with average annual temperatures well above 20°C but can grow at higher altitudes and tolerates slight frost. It grows on well-drained soils with good aeration and is well adapted to marginal soils with low nutrient content.
Botanical Features
It is a small tree or shrub with smooth gray bark, which exudes whitish colored, watery, latex when cut. Normally, it grows between three and five meters in height, but can attain a height of up to eight or ten meters under favorable conditions.
Flowers
The petiole length ranges between 6-23 mm. The inflorescence is formed in the leaf axil. Flowers are formed terminally, individually, with female flowers usually slightly larger and occur in the hot seasons. In conditions where continuous growth occurs, an unbalance of pistillate or staminate flower production results in a higher number of female flowers.
Fruits
Fruits are produced in winter when the shrub is leafless, or it may produce several crops during the year if soil moisture is good and temperatures are sufficiently high. Each inflorescence yields a bunch of approximately 10 or more ovoid fruits. Three, bi-valved cocci are formed after the seeds mature and the fleshy exocarp dries.
Seeds
The seeds become mature when the capsule changes from green to yellow, after two to four months
Flowering and fruiting habit
The trees are deciduous, shedding the leaves in the dry season. Flowering occurs during the wet season and two flowering peaks are often seen. In permanently humid regions, flowering occurs throughout the year. The seeds mature about three months after flowering. Early growth is fast and with good rainfall conditions nursery plants may bear fruits after the first rainy season, direct sown plants after the second rainy season. The flowers are pollinated by insects especially honey bees.
Ecological Requirements
Jatropha curcas grows almost anywhere, even on gravelly, sandy and saline soils. It can thrive on the poorest stony soil. It can grow even in the crevices of rocks. The leaves shed during the winter months form mulch around the base of the plant. The organic matter from shed leaves enhance earth-worm activity in the soil around the root-zone of the plants, which improves the fertility of the soil. Regarding climate, Jatropha Curcas is found in the tropics and subtropics and likes heat, although it does well even in lower temperatures and can withstand a light frost. Its water requirement is extremely low and it can stand long periods of drought by shedding most of its leaves to reduce transpiration loss. Jatropha is also suitable for preventing soil erosion and shifting of sand dunes.
Preparation of Seeds
The ripe fruits are plucked from the trees and the seeds are sun dried. They are decorticated manually or by decorticator. To prepare the seeds for oil extraction, they should be solar heated for several hours or roasted for 10 minutes. The seeds should not be overheated. The process breaks down the cells containing the oil and eases the oil flow. The heat also liquefies the oil, which improves the extraction process. Oil can be extracted from the seeds by heat, solvents or by pressure. Extraction by heat is not used commercially for vegetable oils. The oil from Jatropha seeds can be extracted by three different methods. These are mechanical extraction using a screw press, solvent extraction and an intermittent extraction technique viz. soxhlet extraction.
Purification of Oil
The oil extracted as above can be purified by the following means:
Sedimentation
This is the easiest way to get clear oil, but it takes about a week until the sediment is reduced to 20 - 25 % of the raw oil volume.
Boiling with water
The purification process can be accelerated tremendously by boiling the oil with about 20 % of water. The boiling should continue until the water has completely evaporated (no bubbles of water vapors anymore). After a few hours the oil then becomes clear
Extraction by Pressing.
Raw oil extraction can be improved using better extraction techniques which can enhance the economics of biodiesel production. SOLVENT EXTRACTION IS RECOMMENDED FOR PLANTATION SIZE OF > 5000 HECTARES. Solvent extraction of jatropha seeds yields the maximum seed oil that is, 37% by weight of seed, or 99% of the total available oil. Normally hexane is utilized in the solvent-extraction process
BY- PRODUCTS
Together with the oil, by-products of the production are: The press-cake, that, thanks to its mineral contents of nitrogen (6%), phosphorous (2, 75%) and potassium (0.94%) similar to chicken manure, can be used as organic fertilizer. An application of 1 t of press cake is equivalent to 200 kg of mineral fertilizer (NPK 12:24:12). The residual, a substance obtained from the sedimentation of the oil during the purification process in the tank. These sediments mixed and boiled with caustic soda and water are commonly used for soap production.
STORAGE
During storage, oil is likely to react with atmospheric oxygen and other environmental factors, and this may lead to a change in oil quality, particularly increase in FFAs (free fatty acids). The quality of oil may get deteriorated during prolonged storage; generally oxidative and hydrolytic rancidity occurs due to enzymes, air, and moisture. Jatropha seeds and seed oil quality may get deteriorated on storage due to bacteria, moles, enzymatic degradation, oxidation, and hydrolysis. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of storage conditions on quality of oil in order to optimize the economically viable storage conditions for storage of oil. Further, following parameters are important for vegetable oil to be used for bio-diesel production. Moisture content: The oil must be moisture-free for catalyst-based transesterification process because every molecule of water destroys a molecule of the catalyst, thus decreasing its concentration. Free fatty acids: The FFA content should be less than one per cent. It has been observed that the lesser the FFA in oil the better is the bio-diesel recovery. Higher FFA oil can also be used but the bio-diesel recovery will depend upon oil type and amount of sodium hydroxide used. Iodine value: The degree of unsaturated fats can be measured as IV (iodine value). High IV is preferred to lower the cloud point. However, an IV of more than 25 limits the use of oil as neat fuel due to its potential to polymerize.
Environmental Aspects of Jatropha
The first dilemma is related to the direct impact on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and transport of farm inputs and outputs. The second is an indirect consequence of high oil prices—the increased demand for biofuel, which is resulting in farmland being turned from food production to fuel production, making food more costly. The third dilemma consists of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuelbased greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is the greatest environmental crisis of our time; however, fossil fuel depletion complicates the situation enormously. Finally comes the degradation or loss of natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high costs and unsustainable methods of production to satisfy the demand for cheap energy. Each of these problems is developing at a somewhat different pace regionally, and each is exacerbated by the continually expanding size of human population. As these dilemmas collide, the resulting overall food crises are likely to be profound and unprecedented in scope. The Jatropha has a direct impact on the CDM(Clean Development Mechnism) and can solve the problem up to great extent.
ECONOMICS :JATROPHA BIODIESEL OVERVIEW
The Biodiesel industry is still young and relatively small, so as it grows to a larger scale and when an infrastructure is developed, the costs of producing and marketing biodiesel may decline.  New cost-saving technologies will likely be developed to help producers use energy more efficiently, increase conversion yields and convert cheaper feedstocks into high-quality biodiesel.  However, in the longer term, the biggest challenge may be the ability of the feedstock supply to keep up with growing demand.  The supply of soybeans, rapeseeds and other feedstocks available for biodiesel production will be limited by competition from other uses and land constraints. As such the key to the future of Biodiesel is finding inexpensive feed stocks that can be grown by farmers on marginal agricultural land, and Jatropha is one of many plants that hold a great deal of promise. Jatropha proves to be a promising Bio Fuel plantation and could emerge as a major alternative to Diesel thus reducing our dependence on Oil imports and saving the precious Foreign Exchange besides providing the much needed Energy Security. Jatropha oil displacing conventional fossil fuel makes the project fully eligible as a CDM project, i.e. recipient of CO2 credits.
An integrated Jatropha Biodiesel Project has three stages:
The first stage of the production process of bio-diesel from the seeds of Jatropha is the plantation stage. Extraction stage of bio-diesel production The final stage of bio-diesel production is the transesterification stage in which raw oil is transesterified to bio-diesel The combination of three stages of bio-diesel production and the role of each player in these stages have to be objectively defined as they can affect the economics of bio-diesel production Therefore, we have carried out Economic analysis considering all above three stages as separate entities. The renewable fuel may lead developing countries in reducing emissions from deforestation, improving energy efficiency, and transforming urban transport. Such an approach can simultaneously support economic recovery and encourage growth in areas that mitigate the impact of climate change. The global crisis may well lead to a temporary reduction of pressure on biofuel production, but as the price of oil is likely to rise again, the biofuel issue will return to the top of the agenda. Bio fuel, "Diesel" from Jatropha and other non food tree crops has the ability to lift many people from poverty to financial independence, from despair to respect and unemployment to business owners.

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