Supercritical CO2 Transesterification of Triolein to Methyl-Oleate in a Batch Reactor: Experimental and Simulation Results

Abstract

In earlier work (Silva et al., 2016; Soh et al., 2014a; Soh et al., 2015), the supercritical CO2 transesterification of triolein to methyl-oleate using Nafion solid-acid catalyst and large methanol/triolein molar feed ratios was carried out. Herein, these ratios are adjusted (from 50–550) to evaluate the yield of fatty acid methyl esters in batch laboratory reactors as temperature is varied from 80–95 °C and pressure is varied from 8.0–9.65 MPa. Also, to better understand the effect of varying these operating parameters, batch reactor simulations using the Soave-Redlich-Kwong Equation of State (RK-ASPEN EOS) in ASPEN PLUS are carried-out. A single-reaction kinetic model is used and phase equilibrium is computed as the reactions proceed. Experimental data are compared with these results.