Supercritical Methanol via Transesterification from Castor Oil to Produce Biodiesel

This research project is basically an experiment approach to study the use of supercritical methanol (SCM) transesterification of castor oil to produce biodiesel. The objective of this project is to study the effects of temperature, pressure, reaction time and the yield of methyl esters or biodiesel between supercritical methanol method with heterogeneous catalytic method. In this study, castor oil has been chosen as feedstock because it is readily available in Malaysia and inedible oil. Castor oil is constituted mainly by triglycerides. These triglycerides are converted to the corresponding alkyl ester and glycerol by transesterification with short chain alcohols, typically methanol in this research. The research was carried out in a batch-type tube reactor and heated beyond supercritical temperature and pressure of methanol, which are at 239 °C and 8.1 MPa respectively. The molar ratio alcohol/oil has been identified as a crucial variable and has been varied in these experiments which are 1:3 and 1:6.Non-catalytic supercritical methanol method offers advantages over the catalytic transesterification method either the alkaline or acidic. Compared to conventional catalytic methods, supercritical methanol technology has been shown to be superior in terms of time and energy consumption. Gas Chromatography (GC) will be used to analyze the biodiesel product.