Jojoba oil biorefinery using a green catalyst. Part I: Simulation of the process

In this paper, the concept of a biorefinery is focused on the use of jojoba oil together with a catalyst produced from waste derived from the fish industry to obtain jojobyl alcohols as a main product and fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) as co‐product. The overall process is divided into three steps: a transesterification step, crystallization step, and a purification step. For the study of this process, two different simulation softwares were used to run the mass and energy balances. In addition, the main properties of transesterified jojoba oil, jojobyl alcohols, and FAME were also determined. On one hand, the jojobyl alcohols (11‐eicosenol, 13‐docosenol, and 15‐tetracosenol), which are obtained through two‐step crystallizations, have many pharmaceutical applications and a high added value as a main product. From these results, it is concluded that the FAME obtained as a co‐product during the process is not suitable to be sold as biodiesel, but it might be used in the biorefinery to produce electricity, making the overall process energy more efficient.