Modelling Chemical Kinetics of Soybean Oil Transesterification Process for Biodiesel Production: An Analysis of Molar Ratio between Alcohol and Soybean Oil Temperature Changes on the Process Conversion Rate

Abstract

A mathematical model describing chemical kinetics of transesterification of soybean oil for biodiesel production has been developed. The model is based on the reverse mechanism of transesterification reactions and describes dynamics concentration changes of triglycerides, diglycerides, monoglycerides, biodiesel, and glycerol production. Reaction rate constants were written in the Arrhenius form. An analysis of key process variables such as temperature and molar ratio soybean oil- alcohol using response surface analysis was performed to achieve the maximum soybean conversion rate to biodiesel. The predictive power of the developed model was checked for the very wide range of operational conditions and parameters values by fitting different experimental results for homogeneous catalytic and non-catalytic processes published in the literature. A very good correlation between model simulations and experimental data was observed.

Keywords

• Biodiesel
• Modelling
• Transesterification kinetics
• Soybean oils