engleski

Influence of static mixer geometry on biodiesel synthesis

Biodiesel is considered a promising fuel alternative to fossil fuels [1]. Vegetable oils, along with animal fats and wastes, are considered the best feedstocks for biodiesel production. Vegetable oils are converted into biodiesel by transesterification with methanol [2]. The current trend in biodiesel production is towards millifluidic and microfluidic devices, which are often custom-built reactionware. The reactionware is often produced using additive manufacturing, which means that laboratory devices are produced that are specifically tailored to the desired reaction. In this work, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program was used to simulate fluid flow in a microreactor modeled using CAD (computer-aided design) software. CFD predicted how the fluid would behave and provided initial results. After the initial CFD simulations, biodiesel production was conducted in the laboratory. Two types of microreactors were 3D-printed, a tubular microreactor and a "vortex" microreactor. In both reactors, the reaction was carried out four times with four different residence times: 1, 2, 4 and 8 minutes. The obtained mixture of products and unconverted reagents was separated using a centrifuge. The biodiesel was then characterized by gas chromatography (GC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) with ATR crystal. The dead volumes predicted by the software CFD in the modeled "vortex" microreactor were confirmed by experiments. The conversion in the tubular microreactor is higher due to the dead volume in the "vortex" microreactor.

additive manufacturing ; microreactor ; CFD ; CAD

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