Effect of Pressure on Biodiesel Production in Supercritical Tert -butyl Methyl Ether (MTBE)

Abstract

A continuous reactor was used to examine the effect of pressure on biodiesel production using a supercritical tert-butyl methyl ether (MTBE) at the pressure range of 10-30 MPa and temperature range of 300-400 °C. The effect of pressure on reaction rate as well as final product composition was negligible for the conditions employed here. This negligible effect could be explained by the almost constant density of MTBE. The pre-exponential factors and activation energy for each reaction step as well as its reverse reaction have been determined.