OP-II-3

OP-III-A-1A NEW SIMPLE MICROCHANNEL DEVICE FOR INTENSIFYINGBIODIESEL PRODUCTIONSantacesaria E. 1 , Di Serio M., Tesser R., Russo V., Turco R., Tortorelli M.University of Naples “Federico II” – Department of Chemistry,Complesso Universitario Monte S. Angelo, Via Cintia 4, I-80126 Naples (Italy)1 E-mail address: elio.santacesaria@unina.it - Fax: +39 081674026In the present work a new laboratory device, recently patented 1 , specificallydeveloped to obtain microchannels, in order to test the process intensification effecton different reactions will be described. This device represents a useful connectionbetween a traditional tubular packed bed reactor and the microreactors that are veryefficient, as it is well known, in mass and energy transfer operations. The apparatusdeveloped in this work is constituted by a tubular reactor which packing is composedby metallic spheres with different diameters and/or of filling material of differentshape and size. The filling material size is chosen in a way that the cavities betweenthe particles promote a very active local micromixing. In the obtained packing of thetubular reactor, microchannels are present with variable sizes in a range between200-2000 µm, values that are comparable with those of the commercially availablemicroreactors. Moreover, with microchannels of these sizes, an intensive mixing isrealized also at relatively low flow rates, enhancing the mass transfer effect, inparticular in the case of immiscible liquid phases, while, the metal thermalconductivity allows a fast heat exchange.The transesterification reaction of vegetable oil with methanol, promoted bypotassium or sodium hydroxide or related alkoxides, is characterized by theimmiscibility of the reagents. Therefore, the reaction is strongly enhanced by anefficient stirring and is, therefore, particularly suitable to be conducted in amicroreactor in which micromixing is very active. Moreover, this aspect can be betterprofited by increasing the temperature above the boiling point of methanol (65°C),obviously operating at higher pressure. In this case the reaction rate increases moreand more but, due to micromixing, the reaction is not limited by the mass transfer.This behavior has recently been demonstrate by using, for producing biodiesel, aCorrugated Plates Heat Exchanger (CP-HEX reactor) as reactor 2,3 . As this reaction isathermic the operation is safe and the isothermicity can easily be achieved. We willdemonstrate in this work that by using a tubular reactor filled with spheres or filling153