Biodiesel is a clean and renewable resource that consists of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acid, which could be obtained from the transesterification reaction of vegetable oils and animal fats with alcohols and catalysts. Biodiesel yield has typically been determined using expensive and laborious techniques. The attempt of this study was to examine the potential of quantifying the biodiesel conversion in real time using refractive index in transesterification process of canola oil with methanol and KOH. Biodiesel yields at five different mixing intensities and reaction times were measured using a refractometer. The measured results were then compared with analytical data obtained from thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) technique over a temperature range of 25℃ - 600℃. Experimental results indicated that the FAME conversions at different mixing intensity and reaction time measured from refractometer correlated well to the relative weight losses from TGA method with R2 = 0.93 (p ≤ 0.05); however, the refractometer may over-estimate the biodiesel yield when the reaction rate was too low. Overall, the refractometer technique is cheaper and easier to manage and could provide a reliable prediction of biodiesel yield in real time.
References
[1]
Da Conceicao, L.R.V., et al. (2011) Obtaining and Characterization of Biodiesel from Jupati (Raphia taedigera Mart.) Oil. Fuel, 90, 2945-2949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2011.04.019
[2]
Mittelbach, M. (1996) Diesel Fuel Derived from Vegetable Oils, VI: Specifications and Quality Control of Biodiesel. Bioresource Technology, 56, 7-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/0960-8524(95)00172-7
[3]
Costa Neto, P.R., et al. (2004) Quantification of Soybean Oil Ethanolysis with 1H NMR. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 81, 1111-1114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-004-1026-0
[4]
Chand, P., et al. (2009) Thermogravimetric Quantification of Biodiesel Produced via Alkali Catalyzed Transesterification of Soybean Oil. Energy & Fuels, 23, 989-992. https://doi.org/10.1021/ef800668u
[5]
Shang, N.-C., et al. (2012) Characterization of Fatty Acid Methyl Esters in Biodiesel Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography. Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, 43, 354-359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtice.2011.11.005
[6]
Farag, H., El-Maghraby, A. and Taha, N.A. (2012) Transesterification of Esterified Mixed Oil for Biodiesel Production. International Journal of Chemical and Biochemical Sciences, 2, 105-114.
[7]
Venkat Reddy, C.R., Oshel, R. and Verkade, J.G. (2006) Room-Temperature Conversion of Soybean Oil and Poultry Fat to Biodiesel Catalyzed by Nanocrystalline Calcium Oxides. Energy & Fuels, 20, 1310-1314. https://doi.org/10.1021/ef050435d
[8]
Xie, W. and Li, H. (2006) Hydroxyl Content and Refractive Index Determinations on Transesterified Soybean Oil. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 83, 869-872. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-006-5039-5
[9]
Andrade, R.D.A., et al. (2012) Thermal Behavior of Diesel/Biodiesel Blends of Biodiesel Obtained from Buriti Oil. Acta Scientiarum. Technology, 34, 243-248. https://doi.org/10.4025/actascitechnol.v34i2.12797
[10]
Furuta, S., Matsuhashi, H. and Arata, K. (2006) Biodiesel Fuel Production with Solid Amorphous-Zirconia Catalysis in Fixed Bed Reactor. Biomass and Bioenergy, 30, 870-873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2005.10.010
[11]
Dubé, M., Tremblay, A. and Liu, J. (2007) Biodiesel Production Using a Membrane Reactor. Bioresource Technology, 98, 639-647. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2006.02.019
[12]
Du, Z., et al. (2011) Microwave-Assisted Pyrolysis of Microalgae for Biofuel Production. Bioresource Technology, 102, 4890-4896. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2011.01.055
[13]
Ullah, F., Bano, A. and Ali, S. (2013) Optimization of Protocol for Biodiesel Production of Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) Oil. Polish Journal of Chemical Technology, 15, 74-77. https://doi.org/10.2478/pjct-2013-0013
[14]
Meher, L., Dharmagadda, V.S. and Naik, S. (2006) Optimization of Alkali-Catalyzed Transesterification of Pongamia pinnata Oil for Production of Biodiesel. Bioresource Technology, 97, 1392-1397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2005.07.003
[15]
Qiu, F., et al. (2011) Biodiesel Production from Mixed Soybean Oil and Rapeseed Oil. Applied Energy, 88, 2050-2055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.12.070
[16]
Frascari, D., et al. (2008) A Pilot-Scale Study of Alkali-Catalyzed Sunflower Oil Transesterification with Static Mixing and with Mechanical Agitation. Energy & Fuels, 22, 1493-1501. https://doi.org/10.1021/ef700584h
[17]
Moriasi, D.N., et al. (2007) Model Evaluation Guidelines for Systematic Quantification of Accuracy in Watershed Simulations. Transactions of the ASABE, 50, 885-900. https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.23153
[18]
Hou, X., et al. (2007) Lewis Acid-Catalyzed Transesterification and Esterification of High Free Fatty Acid Oil in Subcritical Methanol. Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, 24, 311-313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-007-5052-x
[19]
Hosseini, M., Nikbakht, A.M. and Tabatabaei, M. (2012) Biodiesel Production in Batch Tank Reactor Equipped to Helical Ribbon-Like Agitator. Modern Applied Science, 6, 40. https://doi.org/10.5539/mas.v6n3p40
[20]
Noureddini, H. and Zhu, D. (1997) Kinetics of Transesterification of Soybean Oil. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 74, 1457-1463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-997-0254-2
[21]
Von Blottnitz, H., Sadat-Rezai, S. and Vardy, J. (2004) Conversion of Plant Oils to Methyl-Ester Fuels: Consideration for Reactor Design in Commercial and Small-Scale Production. 16th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering, 22-26 August 2004, Prague, Czech Republic.
[22]
Vicente, G., et al. (2005) Kinetics of Sunflower Oil Methanolysis. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 44, 5447-5454. https://doi.org/10.1021/ie040208j
[23]
Stamenković, O.S., et al. (2007) The Effect of Agitation Intensity on Alkali-Catalyzed Methanolysis of Sunflower Oil. Bioresource Technology, 98, 2688-2699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2006.09.024
