Reaction Kinetics of Transesterification between Vegetable Oil and Methanol under Supercritical Conditions

Abstract

Abstract The dynamic transesterification reaction of peanut oil in supercritical methanol media was investigated. The reaction temperature and pressure were in the range of 250°C–310°C and 10.0 MPa–16.0 Mpa, respectively. The molar ratio of peanut oil to methanol was 1:30. It was found that the yield of methyl esters was higher than 90% under the supercritical methanol. The apparent reaction order and activation energy of transesterification was 1.5 and 7.472 kJ/mol, respectively. In this method, the reaction time was shorter and the processing was simpler than that of the common acid catalysis transesterification.