Intensification of Continuous Biodiesel Production Using a Spinning Disc Reactor

抄録

The present study investigates a spinning disc reactor (SDR) as a process intensification technology for continuous biodiesel production. Refined palm oil (RPO) and waste cooking oil (WCO) were transesterified with methanol in the presence of NaOH as a homogeneous catalyst. The effects of operating temperature, methanol to oil molar ratio, catalyst loading, and rotational speed were investigated. The highest fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) yields as high as 97.0% and 90.9% could be achieved at a very short residence time of 2–3 s when using RPO and WCO, respectively, as feedstocks. It was found that the grooved disc surface plays an important role in increasing FAME yield obtained from WCO to 97.7% compared to the conventional mechanical stirring. This FAME yield also conforms to the EN 14103 standard. Moreover, the calculated values of activation energy based on the first order reaction kinetics were 57.5 and 43.4 kJ mol⁻¹ for RPO and WCO, respectively. The performance of SDR in terms of yield efficiency was also compared with other reactors. The use of SDR offers a significant reduction in the reaction time for the transesterification, especially when compared with the reaction time of 90 min required for the conventional mechanical stirred reactor. It was demonstrated that the SDR is the most promising intensification reactor for continuous biodiesel production from waste cooking oil.