(152b) Effect of Water Content on Soybean Oil Transesterification: Design of Experiment
AIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress on Process Safety
2015
2015 AIChE Spring Meeting and 11th Global Congress on Process Safety
Emerging Technologies in Clean Energy for the Twenty-First Century
Developments in Biomass to Biofuels, Chemicals, and Advanced Materials IV
Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - 4:00pm to 4:30pm
Effect of water content on soybean oil transesterification: design of experiment
Min-Hong Chen, Jia-Ming Chern*
Department of Chemical Engineering
Tatung University
Taipei, Taiwan
Abstract
Biodiesel, produced from transesterification of vegetable or animal oils and fats with alcohol (methanol or ethanol), is one of promising substitute fuels in the future. The predominant method for commercial biodiesel production is the base-catalyzed transesterification process using a low-cost catalyst such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. In the base-catalyzed process, even the original oil contains no moisture; upon the contact of methanol with sodium hydroxide water is inevitably formed and causes troubles in the transesterification process. This study added molecular sieve during transesterification to remove water content and thus increased the biodiesel yield. The full factorial experimental design approach was employed to find the main and interactional effects first, after that the simple method was used to find the optimal condition for biodiesel yield.