Monitoring the transesterification reaction by continuous off-line density measurements

ABEL G.M. FERREIRA; NIEVES M.C. TALAVERA PRIETO; RUI J. MOREIRA; ANTONIO T.G. PORTUGAL

Aveiro

Conferencia; ChemPor 2018: 13th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference; 2018

Univeridad de Aveiro y Orden de los Ingenieros (Portugal)

The continuously monitoring of transesterification reaction in industrial production is of high relevance in order to avoid  operational problems, eliminate batch sampling and analysis delay and guarantee the quality of the final product through a process control system. Also it is essential for kinetic studies. In this work, the transesterification of cottonseed oil at 50ºC and 70ºC, with methanol/oil molar ratios of 4.5, 6.0 and 7.5 were carried out and the oil conversion as a function of reaction time was evaluated by 1HNMR. The density of the reaction mixture, at these experimental conditions, was measured as a function of the reaction time by an off-line methodology. From the density-time and FAME conversion time profiles the operative relationships between conversion, density, alcohol to oil ratio and temperature were established. A very good Correlation was obtained.