Analisis Konfigurasi Lubang Obstacle Terhadap Laju Reaksi Pembentukan Biodiesel pada Bubble Column Reactor

Abstract

One of the non catalytic biodiesel production method is the Superheated Methanol Vapor in the Bubble column reactor. However, the weakness of this method is the low of rate of biodiesel production. The rate of biodiesel production was influent by the surface area between the methanol vapor bubble and oil, while the surface area was affected by the distribution of bubble size which produced from the obstacle hole. The objective of the study was to determine the best configuration of obstacle hole in order to increase the rate of biodiesel production in the Bubble Column Reactor from three design of obstacles tested until obtained the highest result of non catalytic biodiesel production. The design of obstacles were TO(123), TO(100), and TO(68), perforate plate which are connected by steel axis, where the three scenarios given name TO(X) means Triple Obstacle and symbol (X) is total hole in obstacle. These scenarios design were analyzed by the simulation processed using iv Computational Fluid Dynamics method. The best design from the simulation result was TO(100). The result obtained based on the highest surface area as a result of CFD simulation which was 0.0205 m2 and proven within the experiment result obtained the highest rate of biodiesel production which was 0.0114 gram/minute.