Production of biofuels and optimization of related processes, with an approach to preserve the environment

Abstract

This paper expresses environmental destruction due to increasing consumption of fossil fuels and introduces the development approach to using biofuels as a suitable solution for reducing environmental risks. In addition, this study presents optimization process of oleic acid esterification in sub/supercritical methyl alcohol in presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst, considering this fact that esterification of free fatty acids, converted these feed stocks into its alkyl esters and yields biodiesel. The factors affecting the process including temperature, reaction time, oil to alcohol ratio and amount of sodium hydroxide used on the esterification examined. Efficiency of 98% was obtained as the highest yield of process at temperature of 573 k, 12.5 MPa pressure and 1:30 feed ratio for oleic acid to methyl alcohol based on the mole in presence 0.11 wt.% sodium hydroxide as catalyst within 30 minutes.