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

• Main Authors: Mazubert Alex, Aubin Joelle, Elgue Sébastien, Poux Martine
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2014-12-01
• Series: Green Processing and Synthesis
• Subjects: biodiesel; microstructured reactor; oscillatory baffled reactor; process intensification; waste cooking oil
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/gps-2014-0057

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.