Trans-esterification of Palm Oil in Series of Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors

Design of a continuous reactor for producing saleable biodiesel based on making its mixing performance as high as possible is inefficient. One way to solve the inefficiency is by simulation. In this study a simulation was performed to optimize a mixing performance of a continuous reactor for producing saleable biodiesel from palm oil and to predict the required residence times at the selected purities for the transesterification of palm oil in the optimized reactor. In the simulation, continuous reactors were modeled as n ideal continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) in series. The equations systems for the transesterification of palm oil in CSTR and plug flow reactor (PFR) were constructed and solved at various residence times. The intrinsic rate was based on the experimental results for the transesterification of palm oil with methanol in the presence of NaOH as a catalyst at the reported optimum reaction condition (1). The optimum mixing performance of a continuous reactor was 6 ideal CSTRs in series. The predicted residence times of the optimized reactor to produce palm methyl esters at purities 96.5, 97.0, 97.5, 98.0, and 98.5 %wt were 2.85, 3.15, 3.61, 4.32, and 6.24 min, respectively. In addition, the efficiencies of this reactor at purities 96.5, 97.0, 97.5, 98.0, and 98.5 %wt were 66%, 64%, 62%, 59% and 53%, respectively.