Continuous production of biodiesel via transesterification from refined bleached & deodorized (rbd) palm oil

Abstract

Due to the demand of the petroleum based diesel in the worldwide country, biofuel has gained attention because it is made from renewable sources. Biodiesel was categorized as the green fuel which is safe for the environment and can be used as main energy sources. Sodium metal reacts with methanol to produce sodium methoxide and was used insitu as reagent to achieve higher amount biodiesel produce in term of FAME conversion due to no by product formation. A system for continuous transesterification of RBD Palm Olein using laboratory apparatus was developed. In this study, the reaction was carried out using three values of methanol to RBD palm oil ratio (3:1,6:1,9:1), three different reaction time ( 40 min, 60 min, 80min), and three different temperature of the reaction(40ºC, 50ºC, 60ºC). The highest FAME conversion obtained at molar ratio methanol-to palm oil 9:1 which is 77 %. According to this study, the time of 60 min was claimed as highest conversion FAME which is 68.36 %. The reaction temperature of 60 ºC showed 81.25 % conversion of FAME. FTIR analysis has been done to verify functional group present in the biodiesel sample.