Design and performance assessment of an in-house fabricated microreactor for enzyme-catalysed biodiesel synthesis. Issue 1 (1st January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Abdulla Yusuf, Hayat; Elkanzi, Elamin M.; Hossain, S. M. Zakir; Alsaei, Ali Mohammed; Alhindy, Ali Hussain; Ebrahem, Edrees
• Is Part Of: Arab journal of basic and applied sciences. Volume 27:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 239
• Page End: 247
• Publication Date: 2020-01-01
• Subjects: Biodiesel -- enzymatic reaction -- kinetic parameters -- microreactor; Science -- Arab countries -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals; Science; Arab countries; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 500
• DOI: 10.1080/25765299.2020.1766789
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2576-5299

Abstract

Abstract: The production of biodiesel from transesterification of oils is the currently available alternative to consumable fuels. The study focuses on the performance assessment of a microreactor platform for biodiesel production. Since a microreactor provides better mass transfer and a higher surface-to-volume ratio, this significantly contributes to augmenting the reaction rate of biodiesel production at reduced cost. In this study, firstly the T-shaped microfluidic reactor was fabricated on a PMMA (poly methyl methacrylate) sheet. Then, the kinetics of enzymatic transesterification reaction for biodiesel synthesis in this reactor was investigated. A combination of sunflower oil and methanol was used as feedstock in the presence of lipase from Thermomyces lanuginous as a catalyst and tert-butanol as a solvent. The reaction was carried out under ambient conditions (1 atm and 30 °C) where 285 v% of tert-butanol was loaded to oil with 4 wt% lipase, and the molar ratio of oil to methanol was 1:2.5. Gas Chromatography was used to measure the concentration of biodiesel. The kinetic parameters such as maximum reaction rate ( Vmax ) and Michaelis –Menten constant ( KM ) were found to be 0.725 (mol/L.min) and 0.092 mol/L, respectively. High Vmax and low KM values indicated the better performance of the reactor. In addition, a Lineweaver–Burk plot with excellent coefficient of determination (R 2 ) of 99.5% supported the high performance of the microreactor.