Pilot Plant Design of 1kg Biodiesel Production using Waste Soybean Oil

Abstract

As part of the efforts in attaining the commercialisation of biodiesel production in Nigeria, this research work considers a pilot plant design for the production of 1kg biodiesel, using waste soybean oil (WSO). CHEMCAD 7.1.2 software was utilised for the plant design and the process flow diagram revealed that four (4) pumps, four (4) heaters, two (2) separators, one (1) drying equipment and two (2) reactors were involved. Also, the simplified and simulated 1kg biodiesel production design plant showed that 0.0513kg/hr of methanol and 0.1800kg/hr of 0.1M H2SO4 would be required during the esterification process. And 0.6921kg/hr of methanol, 0.9870kg/hr of WSO as well as 0.1880kg/hr of KOH catalyst would be required for the transesterification process. That is the results obtained serve as template for the simulation of process design plants of varied production capacities. This is a good attempt in the ease of attainment of the commercialisation of biodiesel production in Nigeria.