Ethanolic Biodiesel Production: A Comparative Study between a Plug Flow Reactor and Reactive Distillation

The interest in biodiesel as an alternative source of energy has been extremely intensified by its use as a renewable and economically viable fuel. As a result, continuous production processes have been a requirement to supply growing demand. This work presents experimental and simulated results of two biodiesel production pilot plants and makes a comparison between the processes they use. The first one was designed with three plug flow reactors (PFRs) connected with recycle streams. The second one was composed of a reactive distillation process for biodiesel production. Repeated tests in Aspen Plus and Matlab showed that multiple PFRs with high volume are required for 98% ester conversion. However, a single unit of reactive distillation resulted in 99% conversion. In short, to produce large quantities of biodiesel this work indicates continuous reactive distillation as the most adequate process.