Contribution of the Reactive Separation Process to Methanol Recovery and Biodiesel Characteristics

The chemical reaction that occurs in the biodiesel processing is a type of reversible reaction between oil and methanol. Therefore, to increase the conversion of the reaction, the amount of methanol used is more than the stoichiometric equilibrium. The excess methanol is often difficult to recover after washing biodiesel. Determine of the contribution of the reactive separation process to methanol recovery and biodiesel characteristics are the focus of this study. The transesterification reaction process is carried out in reactive separation equipment, using palm oil as raw material, NaOH, and super base CaO as the catalyst. The results showed that the reactive separation process could recover methanol as much as 55.88% for the reaction process using a NaOH catalyst, and 52.94% for the reaction process using a super base CaO catalyst. The biodiesel characteristics produced to meet the criteria set out in the Indonesian National Standard.