Synthesis of Biodiesel with Methanol Recovery in Reactive Distillation

Abstract

In the present study, biodiesel was synthesized from waste vegetable oil, methanol and catalyst. The present work investigates the use of reactive distillation for continuous production and separation of biodiesel with recovery of excess methanol as top product of acceptable purity. In order to determine the best conditions for biodiesel production by reactive distillation, process parameters such as molar ratio of oil to alcohol, reaction temperature, catalyst concentration (0.5–1.5 wt %), were optimized. Atmospheric pressure and low operating temperature (50–60°C) have been used to achieve conversions in excess of 95% in residence time of less than 1 hour. Aspen plus was used as a computer-aided process engineering tool for rigorous steady state simulation. Acid catalyzed process using waste cooking oil (WCO) proved to be technically feasible with less complexity thereby making it a competitive alternative to commercial biodiesel production.