Biodiesel fuel from rapeseed oil as prepared in supercritical methanol

✍ Scribed by S Saka; D Kusdiana

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 385 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-2361(00)00083-1

✦ Synopsis

Transesteri®cation reaction of rapeseed oil in supercritical methanol was investigated without using any catalyst. An experiment has been carried out in the batch-type reaction vessel preheated at 350 and 4008C and at a pressure of 45±65 MPa, and with a molar ratio of 1:42 of the rapeseed oil to methanol. It was consequently demonstrated that, in a preheating temperature of 3508C, 240 s of supercritical treatment of methanol was suf®cient to convert the rapeseed oil to methyl esters and that, although the prepared methyl esters were basically the same as those of the common method with a basic catalyst, the yield of methyl esters by the former was found to be higher than that by the latter. In addition, it was found that this new supercritical methanol process requires the shorter reaction time and simpler puri®cation procedure because of the unused catalyst.