PREPARATION OF BIODIESEL USING SUPERCRITICAL METHANOL

LUCHIAN DOREL**, NISTOR DENISA*, MIRON DORU NECULAI*, BUCUR ILIE*, URSU ALINA*

* UNIVERSITY OF BACĂU, ** SC SEMITECH SRL BACĂU

Abstract

Transesterification of soybean oil in supercritical methanol has been carried outin the absence of catalyst. A co-solvent was added to the reaction mixture in order todecrease the operating temperature, pressure and molar ratio of alcohol to vegetable oil.With CO2 as co-solvent in the reaction system, there was a significant decrease in theseverity of the conditions required for supercritical reaction.

Keywords

Biodiesel Supercritical Co-solvent Methyl ester CO2 Transesterification