The greatest drawback of using pure vegetable oils as fuels are their high viscosity, although this can be reduced by techniques such as dilution, micro-emulsification, pyrolysis or transesterification. Of these processes, the transesterification of vegetable oil triglycerides in supercritical methanol has been shown to be particularly promising, producing high yields of low-viscosity methyl esters without the need of a catalyst. Furthermore,these methyl esters have a considerably lower flash point than that of pure vegetable oils.

Biodiesel: A Realistic Fuel Alternative for Diesel Engines describes the production and characterisation of biodiesel, along with current experimental research work in the field. The book will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in renewable energy, as well as to fuel engineers.