Biodiesel Production from Vegetable Oil over Plasma Reactor: Optimization of Biodiesel Yield using Response Surface Methodology

Istadi Istadi (Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Jl. Prof. H. Sudarto, SH., Semarang)
Didi Dwi Anggoro (Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Jl. Prof. H. Sudarto, SH., Semarang)
Putut Marwoto (Department of Physics, FMIPA, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Kampus Sekaran Gunung Pati, Semarang)
Suherman Suherman (Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Jl. Prof. H. Sudarto, SH., Semarang)
Bambang Tri Nugroho (Department of Chemical Engineering, Diponegoro University, Jl. Prof. H. Sudarto, SH., Semarang)

Bulletin of Chemical Reaction Engineering & Catalysis
2009: BCREC Volume 4 Issue 1 Year 2009 (June 2009)

Biodiesel production has received considerable attention in the recent past as a renewable fuel. The production of biodiesel by conventional transesterification process employs alkali or acid catalyst and has been industrially accepted for its high conversion and reaction rates. However for alkali catalyst, there may be risk of free acid or water contamination and soap formation is likely to take place which makes the separation process difficult. Although yield is high, the acids, being corrosive, may cause damage to the equipment and the reaction rate was also observed to be low. This research focuses on empirical modeling and optimization for the biodiesel production over plasma reactor. The plasma reactor technology is more promising than the conventional catalytic processes due to the reducing reaction time and easy in product separation. © 2009 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)