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The World supplies of fossil mineral fuels are non-renewable and close to depletion, at the same time production of energy from alternative resources tends to continuous growth. The major of our research was focused on estimation of spring oilseed crops cultivation efficiency and use of vegetative oil as raw source for biofuel production. The vegetative oils quality estimation and their correspondence to EN 14214 standards that regulate biodiesel quality was performed. The highest yield of seed among oilseed crops grown on typical chernozems with low humus content under conditions of Ukrainian Forest-Steppe forms spring rape — 2.53 t/ha and lowest — spring cress — 1.6 t/ha. Comprehensive estimation of methyl esters of vegetable and animal origin showed that methyl ester derived from rape oil fits the EN 14214 standard.

More extensive development of biodiesel production is hampered by a relatively high production cost of this product. Together with external measures (organization of optimal production, minimization of transport costs, etc.) it is necessary to use the by-products of biodiesel as rationally as possible to reduce the production cost. The work deals with the possibilities of using by-products (rapeseed straw, oilcake and glycerol) for energy needs and is based on experiments. The experiments established fractional compositions, thermal properties and dependences of rapeseed oil, oilcake and crude glycerol. Equilibrium moisture content of rapeseed straw, keeping them in a closed room, is 15% and heating value is 17.5±1.9 MJ/kg; the heating value of cold-pressed oilcake with 8-10% of oil is 19.8±2.0 MJ/kg; the water content in green glycerol composition accounts to 12.5±0.6%, the one of methanol is 0.3±0.03 and their heating value is 22.1±1.7 MJ/kg. The research proved that the use of green glycerol while mixing it with sawdust and pressing is an efficient way to produce fuel. It was established that after adding 80% of crude glycerol to dust, the heating value of dry sawdust increases by 22-23% and the heating value of 8% moisture content sawdust increases by 31-32%. The amount of nitrogen oxides NOx in fume does not exceed the permissible limit – 650 mg/m3, CO amount in fume is minimal as is the amount of free oxygen and only traces of sulphur dioxide are found in the fume.