Transesterification of Palm Oil in a Millichannel Reactor

Abstract

Microtube reactor with inner diameter less than 1000 μm has been widely studied for biodiesel production. High mass transfer rate due to high interfacial surface area and internal circulation flow in a microtube reactor result in a higher fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) yield than ordinary batch wise reactor. The integration of microtube reactor for commercial biodiesel production is highly recommended. To materialize the commercialization goal, different tube size reactors need to be investigated. In this study, transesterification of palm oil with methanol was carried out in a transparent Teflon tubular reactor with an internal diameter of 1.59 mm at 60°C using potassium hydroxide catalyst. The effects of residence time and flow rate on the FAME yield were investigated and the results showed that the FAME yield was greatly influenced by the residence time and was able to achieve 90% at the residence time of about 70 s.