Clean Energy for Sustainable Development

17.6. Biodiesel Production

Fig. 17.4 shows an example of a small-scale laboratory biodiesel production reactor. The reactor consists of 1 L jacketed glass batch reactor, reflux condenser to recover methanol, a sampling device, overhead mechanical stirrer, refrigerator, and a circulating water bath to control the reaction temperature [1]. Ref. [65] can also show another good example of schematic layout of biodiesel production setup.

Alkaline-catalyzed transesterification is the most widely used process for biodiesel production because it is very fast and yields large amount of biodiesel (Fig. 17.5).

The excess methanol is later recovered and reused. In transesterification process, the triglyceride molecule was taken after neutralizing the free fatty ...