Design and manufacturing of an ultrasonic reactor for biodiesel obtaining by transesterification

Abstract

It presents the design, development, and implementation of the ultrasonic reactor in laboratory level for batch transesterification with temperature variation, with a mechanic and electronic modular development; its operational characteristics were obtained through commercial equipment revision. To evaluate its performance, a mixture was made using castor oil, methanol, and potassium hydroxide, to obtain biodiesel and glycerin; by taking the glycerin stoichiometric value obtained in the reaction as the reference production value, an efficiency of 97% was reached with only the ultrasound incidence. In the processes with external temperature incidence, it was observed that it influences the reaction speed, since the stabilization times are around 30% less than the other observed processes.