microalgae cultivation, harvesting, and extraction
to obtain microalgae oil, the oil is transesterified
by using methanol as a raw material, with
sodium hydroxide as catalyst, in a reactor to
produce free fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) as
biodiesel and glycerol as by product. In addition,
methanol, unconverted oil, and catalyst are
utilized incompletely in the transesterification
reaction. After completing the reaction, methanol
is recovered in a methanol recovery column in
order to send it back as raw material. Biodiesel
and glycerol are separated. In addition, biodiesel
is washed by warm water. Two streams are
separated: the stream of biodiesel purification
and that of the glycerol purification. Besides,
catalyst removal appears in this work.
Process simulation is an alternative tool to
simulate biodiesel production. In addition, process
simulation is selected to obtain the mass and
energy data for the application of the environmental
assessment. Aspen Plus simulator is
the program utilized in this work. The simulation
is used to propose a conceptual design of
biodiesel production. However, most of the key
components involved in the process are not