Production of biodiesel by an impinging jet reactor using alkali and enzymatic catalysts

ABSTRACT

Biodiesel is efficiently produced by homogeneous or heterogeneous transesterification of various types of oils. The only barrier to all biodiesel production methods is the need for novel reactor designs to improve mixing and heat and mass transfer through immiscible reactants. In this study, an impinging jet reactor (IJR) has been successfully used as a novel and efficient design of reactor to produce biodiesel from sunflower oil by both homogeneous alkali (NaOH) and heterogeneous lipase-bound MnO₂ catalyst. For both cases of catalysts, the novel IJR proved to be more efficient in conversion yield, 2.9 times more in alkaline and 18 times more in enzymatic transesterification compared to a stirred vessel. The gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis proved the existence of four major fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) in synthesized biodiesel samples: methyl palmitate, methyl stearate, methyl oleate and methyl γ-linoleate. Also, the application of IJR imposes a selectivity toward the transesterification of unsaturated long-chained γ-linoleic acid.

KEYWORDS:

• Biodiesel
• impinging jet reactor
• lipase
• transesterification

Acknowledgements

We thank the University of Tabriz (Iran) for the support provided.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.