Continuous Production of Fatty Acid Ethyl Esters from Soybean Oil in Compressed Ethanol

Abstract

This work investigates the production of fatty acid ethyl esters from soybean oil in sub- and supercritical ethanol. The experiments were performed in a tubular reactor in the temperature range of 473−648 K, from 7 to 20 MPa, adopting the oil-to-ethanol molar ratio interval from 1:10 to 1:100. Results showed that temperature and pressure below the solvent critical point led to very low reaction conversions while appreciable yields were verified around 623 K and 20 MPa using an oil-to-solvent molar ratio of 1:40 and with a reaction time of approximately 15 min. A pseudo-first-order kinetic modeling was employed in representing the experimental alcoholysis data with a satisfactory agreement between experimental and calculated conversion values.