[Zirconium]

Hye everyone, please help me with my solid catalyst biodiesel production project.

the solid catalyst that's used for the conversion of triglycerides to biodiesel (methyl ester) is sulfated zirconia. This catalyst could leach in the presence of water. In my case, the raw materials that's used (refined palm oil) consist 0.05 wt% water. How do I remove this water? distillation collumn? could anyone suggest any other operation unit that's less costly.

other questions will be aired later. thanks

[Borek]

0.05% w/w sounds pretty dry to me. Even if you remove it, one of the products of esterification is water. Thus you will spend money/energy to remove water traces only to immediately contaminate your reaction mixture with water in the next step. Question is: is further drying of the oil economically viable?

[Zirconium]

thanks mr. borek..

is it suitable to use CSTR if we use heterogeneous catalyst? Or is it sufficient to use fixed bed reactor? because in the journals that I read, stirring is an important aspect.