Accleration for Esterification of Oleic Acid for Biodiesel Microwave Assisted Production

Hung-Chun Hsu^1*, Jen-Chun Huang¹, Po-Kang Liu¹, Yu-Xiang Liu¹, Hsien-Wen Chao¹

¹Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

* Presenter:Hung-Chun Hsu, email:z11452@yahoo.com.tw

To produce the biodiesel, there are two main reaction will involve, esterification and transesterification. Since the former is more time-consuming, our work will focus on accelerating the esterification of oleic acid and and glycerol for biodiesel. This work presents an experimental study on esterification reaction rate under microwave-heating and conventional-heating process without catalyst. Here we proposed two cavities to accelerate the esterification reaction, one with a stirring bar inside, another with oil-spraying system. Results show that the reaction rate of the microwave process is more than three times faster than that of the conventional-heating one under the same experimental condition, including temperature. This interesting finding indicates that there is a non-thermal microwave effect during the reaction process. It deserves further theoretical and experimental study.

Keywords: Microwave, Biodiesel, Esterification, Glycerolysis, Oleic Acid