State of the art of biodiesel production under supercritical conditions

Abstract

This paper reviews the current status of biodiesel production mainly under supercritical conditions. Various methods such as homogeneous acid- and alkali-catalyzed transesterification, heterogeneous acid and alkali-catalyzed transesterification, enzyme-catalyzed transesterification, and supercritical reactions have been employed so far to synthesize biodiesel. Herein, we review the reaction mechanisms and experimental results for these approaches. Recently, supercritical biodiesel production has undergone a vigorous development as the technology offers several advantages over other methods, including the fact that it does not require a catalyst, short residence time, high reaction rate, no pretreatment requirement, and applicability to a wide variety of feedstock. This technology was first designed for biodiesel production using methanol and ethanol. Biodiesel production without glycerol as a byproduct is attractive and has been achieved using supercritical methyl acetate and dimethyl carbonate (DMC). Most recently, biodiesel production in supercritical tert-butyl methyl ether (MTBE) has been developed also. In this review, supercritical biodiesel production will be discussed in detail. Empirical rate expressions are derived for biodiesel production in supercritical methanol, ethanol, methyl acetate, DMC, and MTBE in this study for the first time. These rate equations are critical to predicting biodiesel yields and to comparing the reaction behaviors in different solvents. Lastly challenges for improving energy recovery in supercritical biodiesel production and recommendations for future work are provided.