The scale up biodiesel production reactor pilot plant and industrial scale from sunan candlenut oil with Aspen HYSYS simulation

Indonesia currently relies heavily on fossil fuels as a source of energy. Biodiesel is one of the new renewable energy sources, one of the sources is obtained from candlenut seeds. Candlenut oil is non-food, which does not compete with food needs because it contains α-eleostearic acid and is relatively inexpensive with a high oil content, which is around 45-55%. From laboratory scale data the best weight ratio of methanol to oil is 1:1 with a catalyst weight of 1 wt% and a reaction temperature of 65℃ with a yield of 95.15%. Seeing the potential of sunan candlenut seeds as a raw material for making biodiesel, this research will scale up the design of the main reactor for industrial scale biodiesel production through Aspen Hysys software simulation. The types of reactors used are Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) and Plug Flow Reactor (PFR). Based on the results of the Aspen Hysys process simulation, at the pilot plant scale, the biodiesel yield produced in the CSTR reactor was 79,06% and PFR was 91% at production capacity of 10,000 tons/year. Meanwhile, on an industrial scale, the biodiesel yield for CSTR reactor was 79,7% and PFR was 87,3% at production capacity of 100.000 tons/year. The capital cost for CSTR is 1,838,350 USD and for PFR is 1,815,990 USD. In addition, it was also obtained the effect of sunan candlenut oil flow rate on the mass fraction of methyl ester, where the greater the incoming flow rate, the methyl ester fraction tends to increase. Meanwhile, the effect of the catalyst flow rate on the mass fraction of methyl esters, obtained the greater the flow rate of the incoming catalyst, the smaller the fraction of methyl esters obtained.