Phase Equilibria Phenomena in Fatty Oils Transesterification with Supercritical Alcohols

P. HEGEL; G. MABE; S. PEREDA; E.A. BRIGNOLE

Puerto Iguazu

Conferencia; I Iberoamerican Conference on Supercritical Fluids - PROSCIBA 2007; 2007

Recent experimental studies on non-catalytic transesterification, have shown that high reaction rates, which justify the process commercial application, can be obtained if the operating conditions are above the critical pressure and temperature of methanol. Even though it is generally agreed that temperatures above 550 K and high methanol/oil ratios are required to obtain high conversions and high reaction rates, there is disagreement among the different authors regarding the operating pressure, assumed phase conditions, the use of co solvents and the justification of the sudden increase of rate of reaction with temperature. In the present work the reaction process and its phase equilibrium engineering characteristics, are directly observed in a double window cylindrical reactor and the conversion in methyl esters is measured. From direct observations and the modeling of the phase behavior, a better understanding of the supercritical methanol transesterification process is obtained.