Non-catalytic supercritical methanol (SCM) and superheated methanol vapour (smv) for fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) synthesis from jatropha and sea mango oils
| dc.contributor.author | Ang Gaik Tin | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-05-04T02:56:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-05-04T02:56:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2016-06-01 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This research project was carried out to investigate the potential of one-step non-catalytic transesterification reaction of jatropha curcas and sea mango oils for biodiesel or fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) production. Initially, non-catalytic supercritical methanol (SCM) was carried out by utilizing sea mango oil as triglycerides (TG) feedstock. Statistical analysis method of design of experiment (DOE) was employed to investigate the effect of reaction time, reaction temperature and molar ratio of methanol to oil in the range of 10 – 50 min, 320 – 400 °C and 20 – 60 mol/mol, respectively. The optimum conditions were found to be 380 °C, 40 min and 45:1 mol/mol of methanol to oil, resulting in 78 % w/w biodiesel content. Subsequently, development of mathematical model based on SCM reaction mechanism was conducted. This maiden model of FAME production incorporating both reversible transesterification and esterification was verified using an ordinary differential equation (ODE45) solver. The highest activation energy of 40 kJ/mol and the lowest reaction rate constant of 2.50 ×10-5 dm3/mol s confirmed that the first stepwise reaction of TG to produce diglycerides (DG) was the rate-limiting step in SCM system. Apart from that, new technology which is non-catalytic superheated methanol vapour (SMV) was developed for transesterification and esterification of oil feedstock. In the initial development, jatropha curcas oil was utilized as TG feedstock in the SMV system. The effects of reaction time, reaction temperature, methanol flow rate and initial oil mass on the FAME production rate and FAME content were studied at the range of 0 – 240 min, 260 – 300 °C, 1 – 3 mL/min and 40.0 – 70.0 g, respectively. Results obtained showed that the highest biodiesel yield at 71.54 % w/w was achieved at reaction temperature of 290 °C, methanol flow rate at 2 mL/min for the initial oil mass at 40.0 g with 88.81 % w/w FAME content, implying the huge potential of SMV technology in producing FAME. In addition, it was observed that higher FAME production rate can be obtained when the initial oil mass is increased. Therefore, initial oil mass was fixed at higher volume which was 100 mL and experimental system was modified by replacing the preheater to a high temperature crucible furnace and introducing obstacle into the reaction chamber. Sea mango oil was utilized after modification had been carried out. From the results, obstacle which refers to cylinder cap with two perforated plates had successfully increased the FAME production (g). The effects of methanol flow rate and reaction temperature between the range of 1 – 4 mL/min and 260 – 290 °C, respectively on FAME yield (%), FAME production (g) and FAME production rate (g/min) was studied accordingly at a constant oil volume of 100 mL. Results showed that higher methanol flow rate and reaction temperature can increase the FAME yield and production. Subsequently, mathematical modelling of semi-batch SMV system, incorporating both reversible transesterification and esterification was developed and verified by using ODE45 solver. The highest activation energy of 50 kJ/mol and the low reaction rate constant of 1.62×10-4 dm3/mol min corroborated that the reaction of TG to become DG as the rate limiting step in SMV system. As a conclusion, SMV reaction is showing its great potential in biodiesel production by using feedstock with high content of FFA. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/13246 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.title | Non-catalytic supercritical methanol (SCM) and superheated methanol vapour (smv) for fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) synthesis from jatropha and sea mango oils | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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