Design and Economic Analysis of the Process for Biodiesel Fuel Production from Transesterificated Rapeseed Oil Using Supercritical Methanol

A supercritical process for biodiesel fuel production is generally known to be less profitable than the alkali-catalyzed process due to high temperature and pressure requirements for the supercritical reaction. Only a few approaches have been proposed using experimental results to design a supercritical biodiesel process and to assess its profitability compared to the alkali-catalyzed process. In this study, a design for a supercritical biodiesel process was suggested and its economic performance with three different reaction conditions was simulated in the comparison with the conventional alkali-catalyzed process. It was found that the total capital cost was higher in all three cases of the supercritical process than in the alkali-catalyzed process due to the high cost of pumps, heaters, and heat exchangers. However, the total manufacturing cost of the supercritical process was lower than that of the alkali-catalyzed process due to the higher glycerol credit and the lack of a requirement for catalyst or ...

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