A sustainable method to produce biodiesel through an emulsion formation induced by a high shear mixer

•Biodiesel was obtained in 60 s and normal conditions.•The process consisted of an emulsion production induced by a HSM process.•Nanodroplets performed a fast and efficient mass-transfer among reactants.

This paper describes a sustainable alternative for biodiesel production. It consists in producing an emulsion by a high shear mixing process (4000 rpm) between two immiscible liquids (methanol and soybean oil), in the presence of NaOH as catalyst. This simplified process improved significantly the biodiesel production since the transesterification reaction was carried out at room temperature, in 60 s, at 22 °C and 1% catalyst concentration. The operation conditions allowed generating nanodroplets which acted as efficient mass-transfer reactors. The effect of the catalyst amount and conversions achieved after centrifugation and decantation were investigated. It was demonstrated that the highest conversion was achieved after total glycerin decantation which was completed after 3 h of settling. A quantitative conversion of triglycerides to methyl esters was achieved permitting the easy recovering of glycerin.

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