tuje

Turkish Journal of Engineering

2587-1366

Murat YAKAR

10.31127/tuje.1779669

Petrochemistry

Petrokimya

Simulation of Reactive Distillation Column for Biodiesel Production

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1729-161X

Karahan

Mesut Yılmaz

ANKARA UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PR.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8113-7874

Karacan

Suleyman

ANKARA UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF ENGINEERING, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PR.

05 01 2026

10 2 364 369 09 07 2025 01 04 2026

2017

Turkish Journal of Engineering

In this study, the continuous flow biodiesel production process within a reactive distillation (RD) column filled with a heterogeneous basic CaO catalyst was simulated using Aspen HYSYS software. According to literature, the transesterification reaction involving triglycerides (such as tripalmitin, tristearin, triolein, and trilinolein) follows a first-order forward reaction mechanism. For waste cooking oil (WCO), the activation energy (Ea) and frequency factor (A₀) were identified. Within the Aspen HYSYS simulation software, the General NRTL model was selected as the fluid package to accurately account for the non-ideal phase behavior of the system. The reaction zone, defined between Stages 1 to 10, modeled the base-catalyzed reaction of triglycerides with methanol to produce esters. Following the simulation, optimal process conditions were determined. The simulation aimed to maximize the sum of the conversion rate in the bottom product. As a result, the optimum operating parameters were established as follows: reboiler duty, reflux ratio, total feed rate, and methanol/WCO molar ratio. Overall, the simulation results were found to be highly consistent with existing literature, demonstrating that the model created in Aspen HYSYS effectively represents the biodiesel production process

Biodiesel Simulation Waste Cooking Oil Methanol Reactive Distillation Column

Ankara University

This research was supported by the Scientific Research Project Office of Ankara University (Project Number: FDK20253785)

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