On-line monitoring of the transesterification reaction between triglycerides and ethanol using near infrared spectroscopy combined with gas chromatography

Many analytical procedures have been developed to determine the composition of reaction mixtures during transesterification of vegetable oils with alcohols. However, despite their accuracy, these methods are time consuming and cannot be easily used for on-line monitoring. In this work, a fast analytical method was developed to on-line monitor the transesterification reaction of high oleic sunflower oil with ethanol using Near InfraRed spectroscopy and a multivariate approach. The reactions were monitored through sequential scans of the reaction medium with a probe in a one-liter batch reactor without collecting and preparing samples. To calibrate the NIR analytical method, gas chromatography-flame ionization detection was used as a reference method. The method was validated by studying the kinetics of the EtONa-catalyzed transesterification reaction. Activation energy (51.0 kJ/mol) was also determined by considering a pseudo second order kinetics model.