CAMELINA (Camelina sativa L. CRANTZ) VARIETIES FOR BIODIESEL PRODUCTION. CRITERIA FOR CONVENTIONAL PLANT BREEDING

Biodiesel and its diesel blends have been accepted worldwide as potential renewable alternative fuels to substitute petroleum diesel. Perspectives for biodiesel commercialization using Camelina sativa L. Crantz as raw material are presented in this paper. Fatty acid profiles and the morphological characterization, including production, number of seeds, thousand seed weight and fatty acid percentage were analyzed for different varieties. A further assessment, considering four parameters, viscosity, iodine value, cold filter plugging point, and cetane number, was carried out to evaluate the biodiesel quality. It was concluded that camelina varieties have a similar percentage of fatty oil content. This work shows large differences in productivity and in the selected physical and chemical properties of derived biodiesel from camelina. Results show that varieties 1072, 117 and N5 (1.9) from Camelina Company Spain could be suitable due to their high productivity (over 4.2 g per plan)t. Variety 1109 could also be used due to its low iodine value (131). Varieties 1008, 1085 and 1109 could be used due to their high cetane number (over 51). This research has identified suitable varieties for biodiesel production. Further improvement of camelina's characteristics is needed by means of plant breeding and manipulation of culture conditions.