Modeling the effect of mixing in biodiesel production.

The transesterification reaction models available in the literature are valid only for one particular mixing condition. In this work, a modeling strategy is presented in order to predict the effect of mixing conditions in the transesterification process. The proposed methodology was applied to independent sets of experimental data available in the literature that show the dependency of the transesterification reaction on the frequency of rotation of the stirrer. The accuracy of the developed models corroborates the validity of the proposed modeling approach.