Free Fatty Acid Reduction for Biodiesel Production in Reactive Distillation Column

摘要

To treat high free fatty acid feedstock in biodiesel production, the reduction of free fatty acid by esterification in continuous reactive distillation column was investigated. In this work, ethanol and crude palm oil (CPO) which the molar ratio of ethanol to oil was 8:1 were selected as reactants with Amberlyst-15 catalyst and the reaction temperature was 80±5°C. The effects of type of reactor, feed location and amount of catalyst were examined experimentally. The result showed that either high amount of catalyst in reactive distillation column increased the efficiency of free fatty acid reduction. Finally, at the same amount of catalyst, feed location at upper part of column yield better reduction free fatty acid than lower part of column.