Ultrasonic-assisted continuous methanolysis of Jatropha curcas oil in the appearance of biodiesel used as an intermediate solvent

Gajendra Kumar; Vidhi Singh; Dharmendra Kumar

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.05.002

Ultrasonic-assisted continuous methanolysis of Jatropha curcas oil in the appearance of biodiesel used as an intermediate solvent

Ultrason Sonochem. 2017 Nov:39:384-391. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.05.002. Epub 2017 May 3.

Authors

Gajendra Kumar¹, Vidhi Singh², Dharmendra Kumar³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Science, Bhagwant University, Ajmer 305004, Rajasthan, India; Chemical Science Laboratory, Department of Applied Science, Bhagwant Institute of Technology, Muzaffarnagar 251315, U.P, India. Electronic address: gaj.chem@gmail.com.
² Department of Chemical Science, Bhagwant University, Ajmer 305004, Rajasthan, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, Sahu Jain College, Najibabad 246763, India.

PMID: 28732959
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2017.05.002

Abstract

A environmental friendly system for fast transesterification of Jatropha curcas oil was developed for the production of biodiesel using an ultrasonic-assisted continuous tank reactor in the presence of fatty acid methyl ester (FAMEs) used as a green (intermediate) solvent with potassium hydroxide used as a catalyst. This research provide a new biodiesel production process, the optimal condition for the reaction were established: reaction temperature 25°C oil to methanol molar ratio was 1:5, catalyst concentration 0.75wt% of oil, solvent concentration 7.5%, flow rate 241.68±0.80ml/min, ultrasonic amplitude 60% and ultrasonic cycles 0.7s, transesterification was completed within 1.09min (residence time). The purity and conversion of biodiesel was 98.75±0.50% analyzed by the reverse phase HPLC method.

Keywords: Biodiesel; Continuous tank reactor; Jatropha curcas oil; RP-HPLC; Transesterification; Ultrasonication.