Kinetics of Non-Catalytic Esterification of Free Fatty Acids Present in Jatropha Oil

Non-catalytic esterfication of free fatty acids (FFA) present in vegetable oils is an alternative pretreatment process for the biodiesel production. Biodiesel, consists of long-chain fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) and is obtained from renewable sources such as vegetable oils or animal fat. This study presents kinetics of thermal esterification of free fatty acids present in jatropha oil with methanol. The effect of process parameters like reaction time (1-5 h), temperature (170-190°C) and oil to methanol ratio (1:3-1:5) at constant pressure was investigated. The optimal conditions were found to be oil to methanol ratio of 1:4, 190°C, at 27.1 bar and 5 h which gave a maximum conversion of 95.1%. A second order kinetic model for both forward and backward reactions was proposed to study the reaction system. A good agreement was observed between the experimental data and the model values. The activation energy for forward reaction and the heat of reaction were found to be 36.364 Kcal/mol and 1.74 Kcal/mol respectively.