Biodiesel Production by Two-Stage Transesterification with Ethanol By Washing with Neutral Water and Water Saturated with Carbon Dioxide

G. MENDOW; N.S.VEIZAGA; B. SÁNCHEZ; C.A.QUERINI

BIORESOURCE TECHNOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2012

0960-8524

In order to meet the conversion values established by international standards, a two-stage process for the production of ethanol-based biodiesel was proposed in a previous work. The industrial production of ethyl esters has as a challenge the purification step, due to the excessive amount of soaps formed in this process. In this work, a simple biodiesel washing treatment is presented, which allows the successful purification of samples containing high amounts of soaps, such as those obtained using ethanol. A complete process scheme for the ethyl esters production is proposed, which involves an esterification stage, with the aim of recovering the soaps thus obtaining yields close to the expected theoretical ones. The mass balances of this whole process were performed with data obtained in the laboratory. In addition, a number of quality parameters were measured and compared with the corresponding to the same samples obtained using methanol as transesterification alcohol.