Abstract This paper considers the kinetics of biodiesel production in alkali catalyzed transesterification of groundnut oil using a batch reactor. The key chemical reactions involved were identified. The concentrations of the reactants and products with time were obtained experimentally. Their rates were modeled as non-linear ordinary differential equations. The differential coefficients were obtained by cubic spline differentiation of experimental mole concentration data. The resulting set of equations were solved to obtain the six rate constants k1 to k6 . At 65° C, their values were obtained as 4.4292, 0.0016, 2.0862, 0.7262, 0.0001, and 9.6358 litre/(mol. s) respectively. The corresponding values at 70° C were also obtained. The values are comparable to those reported in the literature for biodiesel production from other vegetable oils. The temperature dependence of the reaction rate constants were determined using the Arrhenius equation. The associated activation energy and the pre-exponential factor for each rate constant was determined.
Eze et al. (Mon,) studied this question.