Kinetic formation of tetraester simulation from secondary data

Transesterification is defined as a process that transforms an ester into a new ester through modification of the alkyl group. In this process of transesterification of the plant oils, it can produce a mixture of multiple FA alkyl esters by reacting the plant oils through many kinds of higher and lower chain length alcohol. The objectives of this research were to study the effect of stirring rate on kinetic formation of tetra ester using the secondary data and to determine the effect of stirring rate on kinetic rate constant. Because of the unavailable of the literature on the study of pentaerythritol ester from transesterification of POME, the research will only use the secondary data as a basis of the research. The study will be using “Mat Lab” programmer to do the simulation of the process. The Matlab is used to study the effect of stirring. The parameter in this study is the speed of the stirrer. There are 3 readings that will be tested, 300 rpm, 600 rpm, and 900 rpm. The rate constant, k will be calculated based on the overall stoichiometric equation. As a result of the study, the kinetic constant is increasing as the stirring rate increased, and the rate of disappearance of PE is faster as the time increased. As a conclusion, the model equation developed can be used to determine the rate constant at the different stirring rate for the transesterification reaction at 160 oC.