Intensification of waste cooking oil transformation by transesterification and esterification reactions in oscillatory baffled and microstructured reactors for biodiesel production

Green Processing and Synthesis

article

Alex Mazubert¹  Joelle Aubin¹  Sébastien Elgue¹  Martine Poux¹ 

[1] LGC (Laboratoire de Génie Chimique), Université de Toulouse;CNRS, LGC

关键词: biodiesel;    microstructured reactor;    oscillatory baffled reactor;    process intensification;    waste cooking oil;   

DOI  :  10.1515/gps-2014-0057

来源: De Gruyter

【 摘 要 】

The transformation of waste cooking oils for fatty acid methyl ester production is investigated in two intensified technologies: microstructured Corning ® and oscillatory baffled NiTech ® reactors, compared to a reference batch reactor to quantify the process intensification provided by each technology. Both reactors achieve high conversions in shorter times. For transesterification, 96 wt.% of esters are obtained in 1.4 min at 97°C in the Corning ® reactor and 92.1 wt.% of esters in 6 min at 44°C in the NiTech ® reactor, compared with 94.8 wt.% of esters in 10 min at 60°C in the batch reactor. For esterification, 92% conversion is obtained in 2.5 min in the Corning ® reactor at 75°C compared with 20–30 min in the batch reactor at 60°C, and at 40°C, 96.8% conversion is achieved in 13.3 min in the NiTech ® reactor, compared with 30 min in the batch reactor. The advantage of the Corning ® reactor is that it can operate at higher pressures (1–20 bar) and temperatures (100°C), thereby providing faster kinetics than the NiTech ® reactor. However, oils with a high free fatty acid level (73%) cause the Corning ® reactor channels to be blocked. A wider range of operating conditions could be obtained in NiTech ® with a pressure-resistant material.

【 授权许可】

CC BY