Investigation of Kinetics of Transesterification for Methyl Ester Production using Jatropha Curcas Seedoil

In this work, transesterification of Jatropha curcas seedoil using homogeneous catalyst (NaOH) was conducted in a reactor with methanol. The transesterification reaction at 6:1methanol to oil ratio with 1wt% catalyst was studied at 35oc, 40oc, 45oc, 50oc and 55oc.The study attempted to determine the rate of transesterification of Jatropha curcas seed oil (JSO) by measuring the rate of formation of methyl oleate using GC-MS technique. The concentration of the product (methyl-oleate) will be monitored by measuring the peak area of GC-MS chromatogram. A kinetic model together with relevant parameters like reaction order, rate constants and Arrhenius parameters would be estimated. The data generated was used to test for first, second and third order kinetics. The process reveals that, the first order kinetics model doesn’t apply for the first three working temperatures of 35oc to 45oc showing negative rate constant (k) values of -0.146, -0.141 and -0.131mol/second, while for the transesterification process at 50oc and 55oc, rate constant values are 0.132 and 0.115 respectively. A general decrease in the reaction rate with increase in temperature was observed. The transesterification process didn’t proceed in accordance with the Arrhenius equation. This means, although the kinetic model and rates of constants were determined, the activation energy (E) and the frequency factor (A) couldn’t be estimated for the process.