15-10: Study of biodiesel production from cottonseed oil using two process: reactive distillation and batch stirred tank reactor

This work presents the biodiesel production from cottonseed oils with bioethanol from sugar cane in presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst. The purpose of the present work is to present a comparative study of two efficients process: a reactive distillation sieve tray column and batch stirred tank reactor applied to biodiesel production. Reactive distillation is the simultaneous implementation of reaction and separation within a single unit of column. Experimental design was used in order to optimize the process variables of biodiesel production and the best ethyl ester (biodiesel) conversion was obtained with the RD column. A kinetic study of transesterification reaction was done. Simulations of both processes were carried out in Aspen Plus software and these simulations are in agreement with experimental results.