A synergic approach to intensify biodiesel transesterification through microfluidics and microwave irradiation

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel capable of replacing the environmentally unfriendly petroleum-based diesel. However, industrial biodiesel production remains as an energy, time and cost intensive process due to poor heat and mass transfer between reactants. Hence, this research aims to overcome the heat and mass transfer limitation of biodiesel production through the combination of a tubular microchannel reactor and microwave-assisted heating. A 100 % biodiesel yield was produced within 1 min of reaction time at 1.0 wt % catalyst loading, 70 °C reaction temperature, 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio and 2.0 m tube length. However, when compared against the mid-level of experimental factors, a tri-response optimisation of minimised environmental effects and production energy cost alongside maximised biodiesel yield with the conditions of 1.0 wt % catalyst loading, 50 °C reaction temperature, 9:1 methanol to oil molar ratio and 1.6 m tube length lead to a drop of 28.79 % and 9.96 % in CO2 emission and production energy cost, respectively, at the trade-off of 19.82 % of the FAME yield. The findings of this study paves the way towards rapid biodiesel production that is energy and cost efficient by eliminating heat and mass transfer limitations in the transesterification reaction.