(17d) Investigations of Mass Transfer and Kinetic Effects During Transesterification of Canola Oil Using a Novel Technique

Transesterfication of  a triglyceride (i.e. vegetable oil) with alcohol is commonly used to produce biodiesel. However, the triglyceride and alcohol phases are nearly immiscible and high degree of mixing is required to have a better contact between the reactants.  The kinetics of the system can be explained by three regimes: initial mass transfer controlled regime followed by chemical reaction controlled regime and final regime close to equilibrium. The initial lag is observed due to the immiscibility of oil and alcohol. A study has been conducted to eliminate the mass transfer control regime and reduce the reaction time by means of a new method developed for the transesterfication of canola oil and ethanol using KOH and NaOH as base catalyst. The kinetics of the reaction parameters of the new method were also studied and compared with available literature data. The new method gave good results as compared to the conventional method for transesterfication. The concentration of acylglycerols (triglycerides, di-glycerides and mono-glycerides) was quite low in the final product by applying this method. The quality and yield of biodiesel obtained by this were much better than conventional method in less reaction time. The new method developed is cost effective, compact and easily upgraded from conventional method. A pilot plant of 50L capacity has been developed to further demonstrate the benefits of new approach.