Quality of biodiesel from soybean oil - process design for low scale production

GUSTAVO MENDOW; MA. LAURA PISARELLO; NICOLÁS IMHOFF; CARLOS QUERINI

Beijing – China

Congreso; VIII World Soybean Research Conference; 2009

The production of biodiesel in low scale, present several challenges.  The major disadvantage of this type of installations, typically used to obtain this fuel for self consumption, is that due to the small scale, several technological alternatives are not feasible from an economical point of view.  In this work, we study the process design in order to obtain biodiesel using crude soybean oil, with high phosphorous content, and non-neutralized. We show that if after the reaction the methanol is partially distillated from both phases, i.e. biodiesel and glycerol, the main phospholipids and the soaps, are transferred to the glycerin phase, thus improving the purification steps that follows the decantation.  In order to assist the small biodiesel producers, a volumetric procedure for total glycerin determination in the biodiesel was developed, and is briefly discussed in this work.