A Continuous Flow Biodiesel Reactor: Reaction Enhancement with a Slit-Channel Reactor

Slit-Channel reactors are reactors whose active surface areas are orders of magnitude higher than those of micro reactors but have low fabrication costs relative to micro reactors. We successfully produced biodiesel with different degree of conversion using liquid-phase catalyst in the slit-channel reactor. The slit-channel reactor conversion performance shows that percent conversion of soybean oil to biodiesel increases with channel depth, as expected, due to more efficient mixing. As the channel becomes shallower, the reaction becomes faster as the average residence for complete conversion decreases. Results will be presented to show that the slit-channel reactor provides an improved performance over traditional batch reactors using NaOH liquid catalyst. The slit-channel reactors were developed with the objective to couple the reactors with solid catalysts in converting soybean oil to biodiesel and discussion will be given on methods of implementation.