Abstract
This paper reports the production of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) and fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs) by the transesterification reaction of rubber seed oil (RSO) in supercritical methanol and ethanol without using any catalyst. Experiment were carried out in a batch reactor, and reactions were studied at 260, 280, 300 and 320 oC at a pressure of 8.1-19 MPa with various mole ratios of ethanol – to - methanol from 0 to 100%. The extent of the reaction was explored using a convertibility parameter, which corresponds to the maximum ester content attainable from the feedstock. The highest FAME and FAEE contents achieved were 91.8 % and 86.4%, respectively. Results show that transesterification of RSO in methanol was more efficient than that in ethanol; the temperature had the strongest influence.
Highlights
The transesterification of vegetable oil using an alcohol at supercritical conditions comprises a method used to produce biodiesel and has gained growing interest due to the benefits related to the environment and quality of the fuel generated [1,2,3,4]
As the critical point of methanol is higher than the critical ethanol point (239.6 oC, 8.09 MPa and 240.9 oC, 6.14 MPa respectively), all the experiments condition were higher than these critical values to ensure that supercritical alcohol condition were reached
For supercritical methanol (SCM) condition, the ester content of biodiesel increased with temperature lower than 280 oC with the maximum value of 91.8 wt%
Summary
The transesterification of vegetable oil using an alcohol at supercritical conditions comprises a method used to produce biodiesel and has gained growing interest due to the benefits related to the environment and quality of the fuel generated [1,2,3,4]. The European Union is critical to the biofuel production using edible oils such as palm oil, corn, soy bean and maize, which are consumed as food. These open a new avenue of producing a biodiesel using a non-. This work aims to overcome this issue by applying the catalyst-free transesterification reaction in supercritical alcohol condition
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