CREATING A DATABASE FOR SIMULATION OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION. PART 2: ESTIMATE OF THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF BIODIESEL

Abstract

Adequate knowledge of biodiesel’s physical properties is necessary to simulate and optimize its process obtaining, mainly the chemical reactor. The objective of this work was to evaluate predictive models of physical properties of methyl and ethyl esters that compose biodiesel to model reactor. Although some experimental data are available, their determination for all the existing biodiesel components can be expensive and complex. Thus, this work investigated the performance of group contribution and approach by fragments in the calculation of these properties. The properties evaluated in this study were: normal boiling temperature, critical temperature, critical pressure, critical volume, acentric factor, saturation pressure, liquid density, enthalpy and Gibbs energy of formation, viscosity, cetane number, cold flow properties and flash point. For each property evaluated was recommended of the most feasible model by comparing estimated values to experimental data available in the literature. Therefore, a database of these properties was created to use in engineering applications.