Supercritical Transesterification of Palm Oil and Hydrated Ethanol in a Fixed Bed Reactor with a CaO/Al 2 O 3 Catalyst

Ruengwit Sawangkeaw, Pornicha Tejvirat, Chawalit Ngamcharassrivichai and Somkiat Ngamprasertsith
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Ruengwit Sawangkeaw: Fuels Research Center, Department of Chemical Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Pornicha Tejvirat: Fuels Research Center, Department of Chemical Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Chawalit Ngamcharassrivichai: Fuels Research Center, Department of Chemical Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Somkiat Ngamprasertsith: Fuels Research Center, Department of Chemical Technology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, 254 Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Energies, 2012, vol. 5, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: Biodiesel production from palm oil and hydrated ethanol in a fixed bed reactor using CaO/Al 2 O 3 as the catalyst was investigated and optimized using response surface methodology. The investigated parameters were temperature, pressure, ethanol/palm oil molar ratio, residence time and total mass flow rate. The approach was divided into two parts, a preliminary study using broad scale changes over a reasonable range of the above operating parameters and then, using this data to select a narrower range, a finer scale study to optimize the selected narrower operating parameters from the preliminary study. The resultant biodiesel obtained under the optimal conditions (285 °C, 20 MPa, 30:1 ethanol/oil molar ratio, 2 g/min flow rate and 4.85 min residence time) was measured for 11 fuel properties following the International Biodiesel Standard (EN14214), and was found to comply with this International Standard. Moreover, ZnO/Al 2 O 3 and La 2 O 3 /Al 2 O 3 catalysts were tested for their activity and stability. Although the La 2 O 3 /Al 2 O 3 catalyst had a slightly higher initial activity than that of CaO/Al 2 O 3 , it is some 800-fold more expensive. Therefore, the CaO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst has a greater industrial potential than La 2 O 3 /Al 2 O 3 , when comparing together the technical and economic benefits.

Keywords: biodiesel; fuel properties; hydrated ethanol; supercritical transesterification; calcium oxide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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