The Iranian Journal of Chemical Engineering (IJChE)

Vegetable oils are proved as valuable feedstocks in the biofuel production. Some common issues of cracking of vegetable oils–as an effective method for the biofuel production- are related to the glycerol decomposition during the cracking process. Transesterification, which can remove glycerol from vegetable oil molecules, is performed before the thermal cracking to adjust the problems. This study has been aimed at surveying the efficiency of transesterification and the thermal cracking integration to produce bio-gasoline and bio-oil from castor oil. In transesterification, methanol as alcohol and KOH as catalyst were used, and the catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, and alcohol to oil ratio were effective variables. Statistical studies demonstrated the interactions among parameters and the yield of the methyl ester production as 96.7 % under the optimized conditions. Results showed that in the thermal cracking two parameters, of the feed flowrate and temperature, influence...