Optimisation of Biodiesel Synthesis from Waste Cooking Oil in the Reactive Distillation Column Using Taguchi Methodology

Traditional biodiesel methods have disadvantages of excessive alcohol demand, short catalyst life, high manufacturing cost. Reactive distillation (RD) simplifies operations by combining reaction and separation. In literature, there was a few experimental study on continuous–flow in RD column with heterogeneous catalyst. So, it aimed to develop economical continuous process for producing fatty acid methyl esters from low price waste cooking oil (WCO) packed cheaper basic calcium oxide. Taguchi orthogonal arrays were used as design reduce number experiments significantly. Conversions steady state times obtained range (72.99–99.52 )% (1.67–6.25) hour, respectively. Effects four parameters analyzed statistical analysis variance (ANOVA) numerical optimization performed programs embedded Design–Expert 6.0. Optimum conditions at the maximum conversion 99.48% time 1.69 hour determined WCO flow rate 2.90 ml/min, methanol/oil molar ratio 8.19 reboiler heat duty 0.419 kW optimization. Considering results quite compatible understood Taguchi, ANOVA carried out successfully. Consequently, deduced economically feasible could be probable using this methodology.