Several experimental runs are performed to analyse the influence of important operational parameters on the reaction rate,namely the amount of catalyst and the molar ratio of the reactants. For these fast pre-screenings an investigation of the conversion of oleic acid is sufficient, though resulting in larger errors for increasing amounts of catalyst, which also has to be neutralized. A detailed analysis of all reactants is performed for experiments used for the determination of the reaction kinetics. Since the influence of the temperature on the reaction rate was investigated in detail for the determination of the reaction kinetics,the reaction temperature during the pre-screening is kept constant at 347 K.