Using a wire coil insert for biodiesel production enhancement in a microreactor

In the present work, the application of wire coil to promote mixing in a microreactor during continuous production of biodiesel was studied. For this aim, soybean oil as a feedstock and potassium hydroxide as a homogeneous catalyzed were used. The influences of the various parameters such as geometric and operational conditions on the performance of biodiesel production were experimentally examined. Response surface methodology (RSM) in conjunction with the Box–Behnken method was used to statistically analyze and optimize the biodiesel production process. The comparison between two types of reactors (with and without wire coil) shows a significant enhancement in mixing during transesterification. The impacts of different wire coil lengths and wire coil pitchs on methyl ester conversion were also investigated. A reaction yield of 99% at the residence time of 180 s was obtained in the modified microreactor. However, the measured pressure drop show that the microreactor equipped with wire coil consumed more energy. Therefore, performance ratio was defined to evaluate energy efficiency and the results show the advantage of using the wire coil insert in lower feed flow rates.