Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2019
25th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Investigation of Segmented Flow Pattern for Biodiesel Synthesis in Microreactor
Submission Author:
Carolina Palma Naveira Cotta , RJ
Co-Authors:
Carolina Palma Naveira Cotta, Juliana Damasceno da Cruz Gouveia de Carvalho
Presenter: Juliana Damasceno da Cruz Gouveia de Carvalho
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2019.COB2019-2402
Abstract
In order to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used for combustion processes, alternative fuel sources have tobe investigated where one promising option is biodiesel. To increase the efficiency of the so far used batch reactionprocess, new ways of production are needed. Hence microreactors gained a lot of attention over the past few yearsand were investigated intensively. However the flow pattern exhibited and its correlation to conversion efficiency wasmainly neglected, even though it can play a crucial role in the conversion of triglycerides to esters. Therefore the flowpattern was the main point of interest in this work. The aim is to figure out in what way a drop flow pattern affects theconversion efficiency in biodiesel synthesis. This was done by using a co-flowing device made out of glass capillaries.For experiments soybean oil was used as the continuous phase and the drops consisted of ethanol containing a basecatalyst. By means of this reactor the influence of the parameters molar ratio, residence time, temperature and catalystconcentration on biodiesel production was observed. It was found that droplet flow pattern show under the right conditionsa higher conversion efficiency than stratified flow. By using a molar ratio of 18.7, a catalyst concentration of 1.5wt%, anintermediate residence time of 0.84 minutes and a temperature of43.1◦C it was possible to reach a conversion of 97.2%of triglyceride to ethylesters.
Keywords
biodiesel, microreactor, Microfluidics
