Investigation of Transesterification of Soy Bean Oil with Ethanol in Microreactor by Design of Experiments

Base-catalyzed transesterification of fats and oils with primary alcohols in discontinuous operation is an established batch process for the biodiesel production. However, the application of microreaction technology and continuous flow process lead to an increase of process intensification. The ethanol/soy bean oil ratio at low flow rates as well as the reactor geometry have the most evident effects on the fatty acid ethyl ester yield of KOH-catalyzed ethanolysis of soy bean oil in microreactors. The influence of the catalyst concentration is of a lower importance.