A statistical approach to understanding the role of reaction conditions in biodiesel production

Abstract

Understanding the reaction processes for transesterification of oils to biofuel is essential for bio refineries, but inconsistent results in the literature make understanding of this processes difficult. To solve this problem, statistical tools were used to interpret the results obtained from varying reaction conditions such as reaction temperature, time and methanol to oil ratio. It was observed that there is variation regime where changing the methanol to oil ratio has no effect on the biodiesel yield. The yield decreases significantly after reaching the maximum at 4:1. The optimum reaction temperature and time were 60 ℃ and 2 h, respectively. The biodiesel produced is within the acceptable range approved by ASTM.