Production of Methyl Laurate from Coconut Cream through Fractionation of Methyl Ester

Sitompul, Johnner P. ( Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Technology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung, 40132,)
Istyami, A.N. ( Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Technology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung, 40132,)
Muhtadi, R. ( Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Technology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung, 40132,)
Lee, H.W. ( Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), 125 Gwahangno, Yuseonggu Daejeon, 305-806,)
Rahman, H. ( Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Technology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Jl. Ganesha 10, Bandung, 40132,)

Journal of Engineering and Technological Sciences
Vol 47, No 5 (2015)

This paper concerns the production of methyl laurate from coconut cream through fractionation of methyl esters. Coconut oil was produced by wet processing of coconut cream. The esters were prepared by reacting coconut oil and methanol using homogeneous catalyst KOH in a batch reactor, followed by fractionation of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) at various reduced pressures applying differential batch vacuum distillation. Experimental data were compared with simulation of a batch distillation employing the simple Raoult’s model and modified Raoult’s model of phase equilibria. Activity coefficients (γi) were determined by optimization to refine the models. The modified Rault’s model with activity coefficients gave better agreement with the experimental data, giving the value of γi between 0,56-0,73. For a given boiling temperature, lower operating pressure produced higher purity of C10 and C12 FAME for respective distillates.