Modelling of Nicotiana Tabacum L. Oil Biodiesel Production: Comparison of ANN and ANFIS

Among the modern computational techniques, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) are preferred because of their ability to deal with non-linear modelling and complex stochastic dataset. Nondeterministic models involve some computational complexities while solving real-life problems but would always produce better outcomes. For the first time, this study utilized the ANN and ANFIS models for modelling tobacco seed oil methyl ester (TSOME) production from underutilized tobacco seeds in the tropics. The dataset for the models was obtained from an earlier study which focused on design of the experiment on TSOME production. This study is an an exposition of the influence of transesterification parameters such as reaction duration (T), methanol/oil molar ratio (M:O), and catalyst dosage on the TSOME/biodiesel yield. A multi-layer ANN model with ten hidden layers was trained to simulate the methanolysis process. The ANFIS approach was further implemented to model TSOME production. A comparison of the formulated models was completed by statistical criteria such as coefficient of determination (R²), mean average error (MAE), and average absolute deviation (AAD). The R² of 0.8979, MAE of 4.34468, and AAD of 6.0529 for the ANN model compared to those of the R² of 0.9786, MAE of 1.5311, and AAD of 1.9124 for the ANFIS model. The ANFIS model appears to be more reliable than the ANN model in predicting TSOME production in the tropics.