Abstract
This research work concerns with the transesterificationof castor oil with methanol to form biodiesel. As the free fatty acid content in castor oil is more than 1%, an acid catalyst namely, H2SO4 has been used for esterification. The experimental conditions were determined using central composite design method and the experiments were conducted in a 2 L working volume fully controlled reactor. The input conditions namely, catalyst concentration, methanol to oil molar ratio and temperature were varied, and % fatty acid methyl ester ( FAME) content was determined. Based upon the experimental data, an ANN model has been developed which is used to predict %FAME yield for a given set of input conditions. The experimental data and the data predicted by the ANN model have been used to estimate the rate constants of a kinetic model. The ANN model predicts the % FAME yield within +/- 8% deviation, and the developed kinetic model shows successfully the effect of methanol to oil molar ratio on % FAME yield at 60 degrees C and 3% (v/v) catalyst loading.