I am Raman Chawla and these children were students of class 11 studying in a public school, Rohingya. Being science students, today we are going to apply our basic knowledge of chemistry to produce bio-laser which could be easily made at the home using some chemicals which can be easily brought from the market. The main ingredient is the used cooking oil which is present in every household and which is of no further use.
The biodiesel is produced by transesterification of vegetable oil and alcohol. Potassium hydroxide is used as the catalyst in this process. Now let's get started.
This is 100 ml of used cooking oil which we are going to filter in order to remove any impurities present in it. The next step is heating the oil. 60 degree Celsius which should be monitored using a thermometer in the meantime we will weigh 1 gram of potassium hydroxide and also take 20 milliliters of ethanol which you can see in the measuring cylinder Now we add ethanol into potassium hydroxide and stir it thoroughly. We check the temperature of the oil which is 60 degree Celsius. We transfer the hot oil to the conical flask.
Add the mixture into the hot oil. Mix it and cover the flask with aluminium foil. The reaction mixture is kept in the water bath at 60 degree Celsius for 1 hour. The reaction mixture is taken in a burette for separation.
Two separate layers are formed. You can see two separate layers. The lower layer is of glycerol which we have already separated.
Next comes the upper layer which is biodiesel which is our main product. Now we have added this biodiesel into empty spirit lamp. Ignite it and look how brightly it burns.