Abstract
Biodiesel fuel (BDF), biofuel made from natural oils and fats, is being regarded as a promising substitute to the petro-diesel fuel. An alkaline catalyzed alcoholysis process, to form fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) from vegetable oils, is widely used to produce BDF. This process, however, requires high costs for refining the products and recovering the catalysts. In this study, a new reactor was developed to produce FAME by blowing superheated methanol gas continuously into oils without using any catalysts. Effects of reaction temperature, methanol feed flow rate, operating pressure, stirring rate, and initial oil volume on the reaction rate were investigated. The experiment showed that the maximum outflow rate of FAME was occurred at reaction temperature of 290°C, increased with methanol feed flow rate and initial oil volume, but decreased with operating pressure and stirring rate. As a result, effects of reaction conditions on reaction rate were quantitatively evaluated, and necessary information required to improve the reactor design were indicated.
