Analysis of some Factors Affecting Production Process of Rubber Seed Oil-based Biodiesel by Opinion Discrimination Analytical Modelling

Abstract

The concept of biodiesel viewed by pundits as a renewable alternative fuel to diesel engines that could partially or fully replace or reduce the use of petroleum diesel fuel has been gaining great importance worldwide for its good quality exhaust, sustainability and biodegradability. The irregularity in production output, low quality, wastes, and downtimes appears to be a serious production problem being faced by manufacturers of biodiesel  products which this study seeks to address. This study seeks to analyze  some factors affecting the production process of rubber seed oil based  biodiesel using opinion discrimination analysis. The research entails the application of survey method to gather relevant information required to build appropriate data matrix of 31 factors that were used to craft  questionnaire administered to 100 respondents for their expert evaluation. Rensis Likert’s 5-point attitudinal scale was used in dimensioning the respondent’s responses, which were recorded in descending order of rating and were captured in a 100 × 31 data matrix and subsequently analyzed with the use of opinion discriminative analytical tool to obtain the discriminative powers (DP). The result of the DP-values obtained enabled us to appreciate the main factors that significantly influence the rubber seed oil based biodiesel production. In particular their relative influence is indicative of the magnitude of the DP-values. This study has revealed that the opinion discrimination analytical approach employed is effective in dealing with the problem of process variability and degraded output.

Keywords: Discriminative Power, Rubber Seed Oil, Opinion Discrimination Analysis, Rensis Likert