Biodiesel Production from Integration Between Reaction and Separation System: Reactive Distillation Process

Abstract

Biodiesel is a clean burning fuel derived from a renewable feedstock such as vegetable oil or animal fat. It is biodegradable, non-inflammable, non-toxic, and produces lesser carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and unburned hydrocarbons than petroleum-based fuel. The purpose of the present work is to present an efficient process using reactive distillation columns applied to biodiesel production. Reactive distillation is the simultaneous implementation of reaction and separation within a single unit of column. Nowadays, it is appropriately called "Intensified Process". This combined operation is especially suited for the chemical reaction limited by equilibrium constraints, since one or more of the products of the reaction are continuously separated from the reactants. This work presents the biodiesel production from soybean oil and bioethanol by reactive distillation. Different variables affect the conventional biodiesel production process such as: catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, level of agitation, ethanol/soybean oil molar ratio, reaction time, and raw material type. In this study, the experimental design was used to optimize the following process variables: the catalyst concentration (from 0.5 wt.% to 1.5 wt.%), the ethanol/soybean oil molar ratio (from 3:1 to 9:1). The reactive column reflux rate was 83 ml/min, and the reaction time was 6 min.

Biodiesel synthesis from photoautotrophic cultivated oleoginous microalgae using a sand dollar catalyst

“…The major bottleneck is known as the cost (75% of the total biodiesel production cost) related to the limited availability of fat or oil resources and also the catalyst choice. 4 Therefore, the replacement of food based feedstocks with inexpensive sources of feedstocks for biodiesel production is more economical than traditional fossil based fuel. 5,6 Simultaneously, nding a prot from the catalytic process is also expected.…”

Reactive Distillation

“…These researchers showed that the productivity of the reactive distillation column was 6e10 times higher than that of existing conventional processes. Reactive distillation experiments for the synthesis of biodiesel from soybean oil and ethanol using sodium ethoxide were performed by de Lima Da Silva et al [121]. In their experiments, a reactant conversion of 98% was obtained, which verified the technical feasibility of the process.…”

A review on community scale stationary and mobile production of biodiesel

“…Reactive distillation (RD) is a hybrid process that combines chemical reaction and product separations in a single fractional distillation apparatus (da Silva et al, 2010). Simultaneous separation of reactant and product shifts the equilibrium towards the product side, hence increasing the conversion and selectivity (Estrada-Villagrana et al, 2006; Tuchlenski et al, 2011; Kiss et al, 2012).…”