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Methanol Recovery During Transesterification Of Palm Oil In A Tio2/Al2o3 Membrane Reactor: Experimental Study And Neural Network Modeling, Abdul Aziz Abdul Raman

Abdul Aziz Abdul Raman

High quality palm oil biodiesel can be produced by combination of alkali transesterification and separation processes in a TiO2/Al 2O3 membrane reactor. Due to the small molecular size, methanol molecules are able to pass through the membrane along with the products. Since methanol is one of the process reactants it is necessary to be recovered. Methanol recovery by means of continuous distillation was employed and the influences of different operational parameters including heating temperature permeate flow rate and reactants ratio were investigated. The results indicate that these parameters have significant effects on the rate of methanol recovery. To simulate the …