Analysis of Obstacle Perforated Plate Content Metil Ester Biodiesel In Bubble Column Reactor Non-Catalytic

Abstract

Biodiesel is produced by transesterification reaction of vegetable oils or animal fats and methanol. Production technology of biodiesel is grouped into 2 categories: namely catalytic and non catalytic. One of the methods for the non catalytic one is superheated methanol vapor (SMV), where superheated methanol vapor is reacted with oil in bubble column reactor, at high temperature and atmospheric pressure to produce FAME (Fatty Acid methyl ester) and glycerol. However, reaction rate by the SMV method is still lower than the convensional one, and the content of biodiesel is lower than Indonesian National Standard (SNI). The reaction rate and content of biodiesel is expectedly can be improved by improvement of contact surface area between methanol vapor and oil. It could be obtained by giving perforated plate (obstacle) in bubble column reactor. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to determine the best obstacle configuration and to study the influece of the obstacle to biodiesel content in terms of bubble behavior in the column reactor. Eighteen (18) scenarios of obstacle are simulated by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method to obtain bubble distribution in bubble column reactor, especially for increasing contact surface area between methanol and oil. Then the result will be verified by laboratory experiments. Based on the simulation result, it is shown that the highest value of surface contact area was obtained by the obstacle BBE (2 layer, 2 mm hole diameter, 7 mm distance among holes, and 4 g.s-1 methanol flow rate), which was 0.023529 m2.s-1. By the obstacle, methyl ester content was found to be 77.96%(w/w) and rate of biodiesel production was 2.00 g.hr-1. While the obstacle AAE (2 layer, 1 mm hole diameter, 7 mm distance among holes, and 4 g.mnt-1 methanol flow rate) gave biodiesel content of 98.68%(w/w), which has met SNI. The rate of biodiesel production was found to be 1.62 g.hr-1.