Continuous biodiesel production using ultrasound clamp on tubular reactor

摘要

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel to be substituted with diesel fuel for diesel engines. It consists of alkyl monoesters of fatty acid from vegetable oil or animal fats and it is an alternative feedstock that can be converted into biodiesel at lower cost. A fast and low cost method to convert vegetable oil into biodiesel through the use of ultrasound clamp assistance has been investigated. The approach of this production is by using the ultrasound clamp to enhance the immiscible liquids between the vegetable oil and alcohol to emulsify together in a short period of time comparing to conventional stirring method which takes longer time for esters to form. The ultrasound causes the rapid movement of fluid hence creating cavitation where the liquids breaks down and cavitation bubbles created. The optimum results for biodiesel production using ultrasound clamp assisted on the tubular reactor is 3 minutes with the conversion of esters 90 % compared to the previous pilot plant unit which achieve 98 % of esters conversion within 5 minutes. The newly fabricated small pilot plant has indeed able to achieve the esters conversion with the presence of methanol to oil molar ratio of 12:1, catalyst concentration of 1,25 %wt and reaction temperature of 64°C. The newly fabricated small pilot plant has been developed in this research to facilitate the transesterification process in producing biodiesel from vegetable oil.