Sustainable biodiesel production by catalytic reactive distillation

This chapter outlines the properties of biodiesel as renewable fuel, as well as the problems associated with its conventional production processes. The synthesis via fatty acid esterification using solid acid catalysts is investigated. The major challenge is finding a suitable catalyst that is active, selective, water-tolerant and stable under the process conditions. The most promising candidates are metal oxides. A novel sustainable process based on catalytic reactive distillation is proposed as base case and a heat-integrated design as alternative. Significant energy savings of approximately 45% are possible compared to conventional reactive distillation designs.