Effect of temperature and molar ratio on biodiesel production in supercritical-carbon dioxide medium

Abstract

In current global scenario, the conventional energy resources are at great risk. This leads us to introduce the use of unconventional and renewable energy resources like biodiesel. Generally biodiesel is produced from non-edible vegetable oil (\textit{Jatropha curcas} oil) by chemical catalytic method. Nowadays supercritical method is proposed as an alternative cost-effective method to produce biodiesel. In a Supercritical-Carbon dioxide medium good quality of biodiesel can be produced. The productivity of biodiesel preparation through supercritical method mainly depends on reaction temperature and molar ratio of the reactants. In this research article, a set of nonlinear differential equations has been formulated based on concentrations of Triglyceride, Diglyceride, Monoglyceride, Methanol, Free fatty acid, Water, Glycerol and Biodiesel. Our study is aimed on how we can achieve cost-effective yield of Biodiesel depending on optimization of reaction temperature and the molar ratios of the reactants (water and methanol) using the control theoretic strategy. The validity of our model is attained by experimental results. The analytical results are also verified by our numerical findings.