ada dilanjutkan dan berkembang dalam penggunaan sumber daya terbarukan sebagai

pengganti bahan kimia yang berasal dari petroleum. Fatty acid ester alkil (asap) yang
dihasilkan dari lemak dan minyak telah diteliti sebagai pengganti minyak bumi berasal bahan
tersebut, bahan bakar khususnya solar.
telah lama diketahui bahwa trigliserida dari lemak dan minyak dapat digunakan sebagai
bahan bakar untuk mesin diesel. remodies untuk penggunaan tersebut biasanya
mengakibatkan mesin. Namun, kegagalan penggunaan tersebut di mana konversi asam
lemak, ditemukan dalam lemak, menjadi ester sederhana, seperti metil dan etil ester, telah
prosed. lihat misalnya, proses yang dijelaskan di USpat No 6.398.707. badan meningkat bukti
menunjukkan bahwa ester tersebut tampil baik di dasarnya dimodifikasi enginer diesel dan
ester tersebut dapat secara efektif mengurangi output dari partikulat dan hidrokarbon polusi
yang berhubungan dengan minyak bumi - bahan bakar diesel. istilah 'biodiesel' diterapkan
untuk ini ester.
proses produksi biodisel telah dikenal selama bertahun-tahun. misalnya A.S. Pat. Tidak ada
4164506 mengungkapkan suatu sintesis biodisel di mana asam lemak dikenakan katalis asam.
konversi trigliserida dengan dasar katalis dijelaskan dalam kita tepuk no. 2.383.601. konversi
dari kedua asam lemak bebas dan trigliserida dengan katalisis enzim diungkapkan dalam US
Pat. tidak ada proses-proses ini, bagaimanapun, benar-benar membahas produksi biodisel dari
nilai rendah bahan baku asam lemak bebas yang tinggi

an economic analysis of any process for the production of biodiesel indicates that feedstock
costt is the largest portion of production cost for biodiesel. Whereas a 15 weight percent free
fatty acid( FFA)feedstock is the highest content that any contemporary commercial process
has proposed to handle,producers ( in order to converse coast) would prefer to use feedstock
having up to 100 weight percent FFA content.
Further, most of the processes of the prior art are unattractive because they rely upon acid
catalyzed esterification of fatty acid. Acid catalysis is not suitable for processing such
feedstock containing FFA concentrations for two principal reasons. Fist, an excessive amount
of acid catalyst is required in order to fully convert feedstocks having high FFA content.
Since the acid catalyst must be neutralized before processingthe glycerides, the increased
catalyst loading result in an excessive amount of generated salt. Further, such processes
generated a large volume of waste water as disclosed in this patent

While enzymatic catalysis has been reported in the literature for esterification of free fatty
acids, it is disadvatageous because of reaction product inhibition from the precence of water
which result when the free fatty acids in the feedstock are esterified with enzymes. Another
problem evidenced from enzymatic processing is the high cost of enzymatic catalysts.
Further, enzymatic catalyst have a limited life.
To avoid two phase operation in packed bed and other reaction settings, some conventional
process for biodiesel production use volatile, ionic co solvents, such a process is dissolved
in this patent. The use of volatile , ionic co- selvent is environmentally anacceptable.
To be economically profitable, the biodiesel industry must take advantage of lower cost
feedstock. Yield is a very important criterion as feedstock costs approach two of the total
coast of production of biodiesel. To gain market share in the fuels industry, biodiesel must be
competitively priced with conventional hydrocarbon diesel.
Altenative processes need to be developed which do not required high pressures or acid
catalysis. In addition, such processes should not employ toxic co- solvent or water for the
axtraction of impurities. Such processes also need to produce high yeild of biodiesel as well
as employ inexpensive feedstock. Further such feedstock need to have a high FFA content in
order to be competitive with petrodiesel
Summary of the invention
A process is disclosed which combines several unit operation into an economical and unique
process for the convension of free fatty acids to glycerides and the subsequent conversion of
glycerides to glycerin and FAAEs. The fatty acid alkyl esters of the invention produced in
accordance with the invention are typically fatty acid methyl esters though other fatty acid
alkyl esters may be produced.
The invention relates to a process for converting low value high free fatty acid
(FFA) feestock to biodiesel and high quality glycerin at a market price comparable to that of
petroleum deived diesel fuels. The process of the invention there are substantially depart from
conventional concepts and designsprovides a process and apparatus primarily developed for
the purpose of producing fatty acid alkyl esters and high quality glycerin from any lowvalue high free fatty acid feedstock
Another aspect of the invention relates to separation and pirification of major by- products of
biodiesel production to render glycerin at a purity level greater than 95 or 99,7 percent with
non detectable levels of alcohol and less than 0,5 percent weight/ weighht(w/w) salt
The invention further relates to minimization of waste sterams during normal operatoins, the
use of lower operating temperatures and pressures than other commercial biodiesel

processes, the non-use of ionic co-solvent and the production of a high quality glycerin
byproduct.in a preferred embodiment, the process is a continuous prosess.
The major steps of the process include the transesterifications of a glyceride steram with an
alcohol, preferably in the presence of base catalyst, to convert the glycerides to fatty acid
alkhyl esters and glycerin.