"Biodiesel production by oleic acid esterification in a bubble reactor: Experimental study and mathematical modeling."
Biodiesel, esterification, bubble reactor, mathematical model.
Bubble reactors are widely used to carry out gas-liquid and gas-liquid-solid reactions at different operating conditions. This type of reactor is often used in chemical, biochemical and petrochemical industry for conducting processes like chlorination, oxidation and CO2 removal. A more recent application of bubble reactors is biodiesel production. In this process, superheated alcohol vapor is bubbled through a liquid phase containing triglycerides or free fatty acids. The alcohol, after being transferred to the liquid phase, reacts with the lipid feedstock to form mono alkyl esters (biodiesel) through esterification or transesterification, depending on the amount of free fatty acids and triglycerides in the lipid feedstock. A bubble reactor experimental apparatus was developed and used to conduct oleic acid esterification experiments by using superheated ethanol vapor operated in the semi-batch mode. The effects of gas volumetric flow rate and reaction temperature on fatty acid conversion was evaluated, as well as the bubble size influence on reactor’s performance. Additionally, a mathematical model was developed and implemented in MATLAB to describe the biodiesel production process in a semi-batch bubble reactor. Experimental conversion data were used to estimate the kinetic and mass transfer parameters, as well as to validate the proposed model. The effects of mass transport followed by chemical reaction were evaluated by using the validated model to simulate the process at different operating conditions.