US EPA

1039274 

Journal Article 

Continuous biodiesel production in a fixed bed reactor packed with anion-exchange resin as heterogeneous catalyst 

Ren, Y; He, B; Yan, F; Wang, H; Cheng, Y; Lin, L; Feng, Y; Li, J 

2012 

Yes 

Bioresource Technology
ISSN: 0960-8524
EISSN: 1873-2976 

ELSEVIER SCI LTD 

OXFORD 

113 

19-22 

English 

22138595 

10.1016/j.biortech.2011.10.103 

WOS:000304223300005 

A continuous biodiesel production from the transesterification of soybean oil with methanol was investigated in a fixed bed reactor packed with D261 anion-exchange resin as a heterogeneous catalyst. The conversion to biodiesel achieved 95.2% within a residence time 56min under the conditions: reaction temperature of 323.15K, n-hexane/soybean oil weight rate of 0.5, methanol/soybean oil molar ratio of 9:1 and feed flow rate of 1.2ml/min. The resin can be regenerated in-situ and restored to the original activity to achieve continuous production after the resin deactivation. The product obtained was mainly composed of methyl esters. No glycerol in the product was detected due to the resin adsorbing glycerol in the fixed bed, which solved the issue of glycerol separation from biodiesel. It is believed that the fixed bed reactor with D261 has a potential commercial application in the transesterification of triglyceride. 

D261 anion-exchange resin; Biodiesel; Continuous transesterification; Fixed bed reactor; Heterogeneous catalyst