Separation Of Fatty Acid Methyl Ester Mixture

With the coming of carbohydrate era and development of biodiesel industry chain, the study on further utilization of fatty acid methyl esters has received considerable attention. This article studies the preparation of biodiesel with jatropha oil on separation and purification by using the home-made vacuum distillation device. Upon the infinite reflux operation, On the basis of the ideal standards of methyl cyclopean-n-heptanes, this experiment calibrates the number of actual plates N. The Comparison of the number of actual plates N and the number of theoretical plates N', the Number of theoretical plates N'of distillation separation of methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester were calculated in the light of ideal system upon the infinite reflux operation and make the system of the preparation of biodiesel (methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester) with jatropha oil were separated research.We especially the distillation effenciency our study on the influence of various factors, such us reflux ratio, the vacuum; Analyses the purity and yield of methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester at different reflux ratio. The optimum gas kinetic energy factor F are obtained by the means of experimentation. The results shows that the number of theoretical plates N' figured out by methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester in the light of ideal system is almost consistent with the Number of actual plates N figured out by the ideal solution data, which verify that the separation of methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester can be engineering design in an standards system. In addition, Results of content determination showed that the optimum Gas kinetic energy factor F is 1.40. The product of methyl palmitate and C18 methyl ester with purity above 99% are obtained through this separation(R=1, P=135 Pa). The yield of methyl palmitate whose purity is over 99% is 76.2%, the yield of C18 methyl ester whose purity is over 99% is 93.6%. Further more, continuous distillation for separating mixings of fatty acid methyl ester was simulated by Aspen Plus. The simulating results indicate that methyl erueate with purity more than 99% can be gained by continuous distillation. The optimum design parameters and operation conditions of distillation process were obtained by sensitivity analysis.Unsaturated fatty acid methyl esters were separated from jatropha oil biodiesel by the ureaadduct methed, using anhydrous ethyl alcohol as adduction solvent. The effects of the urea-to-biodiesel ratio, the solvent-to-biodiesel ratio, adduction time and adduction temperature on the separation were studied. The results showed that the optimum conditions were as follows:Add in 24.1 grams of raw material, urea content 45 g, The ratio of anhydrous ethyl alcohol and urea is 4.5:1, Inclusion temperature of 5℃, Inclusion time 20 h. Under these optimum conditions, the unsaturated fatty acid methyl estersrecovery was 59%, and their content was 93.3%.