Biodiesel process intensification in a very simple microchannel device

Mass transfer simulation of biodiesel synthesis in microreactors

“…Although the literature presents many models for transesterification reaction at the macroscale (Noureddini and Zhu, 1997;De Boer and Bahri, 2009;De Boer and Bahri, 2015), generally these kinetic models are not suitable to describe the observed kinetic behavior within the microreactors (Santacesaria et al, 2012). Therefore, it is necessary and very important to develop: 1) mathematical models for mass transfer problems in microreactors; 2) computational tools and methodologies that provide solutions of low computational cost, while exploring more realistic situations such as irregular domains and moving boundaries.…”

Supercritical fluid technology in biodiesel production

“…Numerous studies have been performed employing various oils, different alcohols (methanol, ethanol, butanol), as well as different catalysts, including homogeneous ones, such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) [8], potassium hydroxide (KOH) [9,10], and sulfuric acid [11], and heterogeneous ones such as lipases, calcium oxide (CaO) [12][13][14] and magnesium oxide (MgO) [15]. …”

“…The process intensification is another wide opportunity to increase the profitability of the process, by investigating the most suitable reactor configurations: with the same catalyst (KOH), Santacesaria et al [10] developed a simple instrument to test the characteristics of the transesterification between soybean oil and methanol in microchannels of different sizes. With experimental conditions of a methanol to oil ratio of 6:1, KOH concentration of 2 wt%, and a temperature of 60°C, they obtained a 95% conversion with the tubular reactor filled with stainless steel ribbon wool in a very short residence time, equal to 3 min, thus highlighting Finally, other alcohols are also widely investigated in the literature, whose advantages over methanol could be their bio-derived source, like ethanol from biomasses, although the price is inevitably higher.…”

Biodiesel production through non-catalytic supercritical transesterification: current state and perspectives

“…The packed bed system maximizes the interfacial surface area between the two phases (oil and alcohol) and the contact of the two immiscible liquid-liquid phases is improved, achieving excellent mass transfer performance by extruding one phase into the other as the two phases flow through the particles openings, as commonly found in a packed bed reactor (Yu et al, 2010;Santacesaria et al, 2011;Su, 2011;Santacesaria et al, 2012). Yu et al (2010) conducted alkali-catalyzed biodiesel synthesis using a reactor packed with metal foam.…”

“…The metal foam reactor with higher pore density produced smaller droplets and resulted in higher efficiency of biodiesel synthesis and lower energy consumption when compared to the zigzag micro-channel and conventional stirred reactors. Santacesaria et al (2012) developed a very simple laboratory device for evaluating the behavior of the transesterification reaction in microchannels of different sizes. The technique employed a tubular reactor filled with stainless steel spheres of different diameters and it was shown that high conversions in very short residence times can be reached with such a scheme.…”