Kinetic Study in the Production of Aeronautical FAME

Abstract

Kinetic parameters correlation is fundamental in biodiesel production, operation, and design. In this work, a MATLAB® application was developed to correlate kinetic parameters in the biodiesel production from palm kernel oil. The functions fminsearch, fmincon, and genetic algorithm were employed to correlate energies, frequency factors, and reaction order. The tool was validated with experimental results reported in the literature. The correlated parameters with the genetic algorithm function show the most accurate result, it did not require initial estimation for the correlation process, and the convergence process did not stop a wrong local optimum, without losing the fundamental objective of this article, which is to facilitate the correlation of kinetic parameters.