Design and manufacturing of an ultrasonic reactor for biodiesel obtaining by transesterification

Abstract

It presents the design, development, and implementation of the ultrasonic reactor in laboratory level for batch transesterification with temperature variation, with a mechanic and electronic modular development, its operational characteristics were obtained through commercial equipment revision. To evaluate its performance, a mixture was made using castor oil, methanol, and potassium hydroxide, to obtain biodiesel and glycerin; by taking the glycerin stoichiometric value obtained in the reaction as the reference production value, an efficiency of 97% was reached with only the ultrasound incidence; in the processes with external temperature incidence, it was observed that it influences the reaction speed, since the stabilization times are around 30% less than the other observed processes.

A Review on the Recent Breakthrough Methods and Influential Parameters in the Biodiesel Synthesis and Purification

“…The mass transfer rate increases due to this emulsification as well as generating faster reaction kinetics. The use of an ultrasonic system in the transesterification process enhances the reaction efficiency and attributes to the less ratio of oil to alcohol (Florez Marulanda and Ortega Alegria, 2019). Meanwhile, one of the superiorities of the ultrasonic system in biodiesel production is the massive formation of oil and alcohol emulsion, which is carried out by simple mixing in the conventional method.…”