Ultrasoundassisted Biodiesel Production in Microreactors

The ultrasoundassisted (ua) soybean oil methanolysis using koh as a catalyst was studied at different reaction conditions in a microreactor. box–behnken experimental design, with three variables, was performed and the effects of three reaction variables i.e. reaction temperature, catalyst concentration and the methanoltooil molar ratio on fatty acid methyl ester (fame) yield were evaluated by method of analysis of variance (anova) and multiple regression. a quadratic polynomial model was obtained to predict the methyl ester yield. a yield of 97.1% for methyl ester was obtained at the deduced optimal conditions: reaction temperature of 47 °c, koh catalyst concentration of 1.29% (w/w) and methanoltooil molar ratio of 6:1. validation experiments confirmed the validity of the predicted model. at the optimal operation condition for the ultrasonic process, a higher yield of methyl esters was obtained in comparison with that of the nonultrasonic layout. the results show that ua transesterification in microreactor minimizes the reaction time and temperature, alcoholtooil molar ratio as well as energy consumption.