A highly active corncob-based solid acid catalyst was used for the esterification of oleic acid. The study involves the design and synthesis of the new catalyst, optimization of experimental conditions, modeling of experimental data to obtain kinetic parameters, and simulation of the continuous biodiesel production process in Aspen Plus software by incorporating the obtained kinetic parameters.

Abstract

A functionalized catalyst for catalyzed biodiesel production via a heterogeneous route is a highly focused area to lower the cost of production and mitigate the drawbacks of homogeneously catalyzed reactions. Production aspects such as parameter study, kinetics modeling, and simulation of continuous process flowsheets incorporating kinetic parameters are scarce in the literature. In the current work, a sulfonic group-functionalized porous carbonaceous catalyst based on corncob was used for the esterification of oleic acid. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW) kinetic model was found to best fit to correlate the experimental data and thus applied to deduce the kinetic parameters. The obtained kinetic parameters were incorporated into the Aspen Plus simulator to simulate the continuous biodiesel production process. The catalyst showed a strong affinity for oleic acid which enhances the reaction rate.