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Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor

Article · August 2017

DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036

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International Robotics & Automation Journal

Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel

Transesterification Reactor

Abstract Research Article

The immiscibility of vegetable oil in methanol provides a mass transfer challenge in Volume 2 Issue 6 - 2017
the early stages of Transesterification reaction in the production of biodiesel. It is of
a great significance to design high-performance nonlinear controllers for efficient
control of these nonlinear processes to achieve closed-loop system’s stability and
high performance of a biodiesel CSTR. A mathematical model capable of predicting
1
Department of Chemical Petroleum Engineering, Niger Delta
University, Nigeria
the performance and behaviour of a CSTR has been developed and evaluated. In this 2
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Benin,
work, a comprehensive design procedures based on model predictive control (MPC) Nigeria
have been proposed to efficiently deal with the design of gain-scheduled controllers,
controller tuning, optimal controllers and time-varying for nonlinear systems. Since all *Corresponding author: AS Olufemi, Department of
the design procedures proposed in this work rely strongly on the process model, the Chemical Petroleum Engineering, Niger Delta University,
first difficulty addressed in this paper is the identification of a relatively simple model Nigeria, Email:
of the nonlinear processes under study. The second major difficulty is the analysis
of stability and performance for such models using nonlinear control theory of a Received: June 10, 2017 | Published: August 09, 2017
robust control approach. In the current work, the nonlinear model is approximated
by a nominal linear model combined with a mathematical description of model
error (due to nonlinearity) to be referred to (in this work) as model uncertainty. The
robust control theoretical tools developed are used for the design of gain-scheduled
Proportional-Integral-Differential (PID) control and gain-scheduled Model Predictive
Control (MPC) in which the MPC method achieves the steady-state optimal set-points
of the biodiesel Transesterification reactor.

Keywords: CSTR; Mathematical model; Predictive control; Gain-scheduled

controllers; Transesterification

Abbreviations: MPC: Model Predictive Control; PID: homogeneous catalysts offers high conversion rapid reactions.
Proportional-Integral-Differentia; MG: Mono Glycerides; DG: Di However associated problems such as saponification reaction
Glycerides as well as the difficulty in separation between the produced
biodiesel and catalyst often results in the use of heterogeneous
Introduction catalyst which when used results in an easy separation of the
biodiesel from glycerol (glycerin). Transesterification consists of
With the world’s depletion of fossil fuels and global
three steps in series with two intermediates namely diglycerides
environmental degradation, the development of alternative fuels
(DG) and monoglycerides (MG). As shown in Equation 1 the three
from renewable resources has received considerable attention.
consecutive reversible reactions of Transesterification include;
Biodiesel has become the foremost alternative fuel to those
refined from petroleum feedstock. It can be produced from a. Conversion of triglycerides to diglycerides,
renewable sources, such as vegetable and animal oils, as well
as from wastes, such as used cooking oil. Transesterification is b. Conversion of diglycerides to monoglycerides,
the primary method of converting these oils to biodiesel [1-3]. c. The conversion of monoglycerides to glycerol.
Transesterification is the chemical reaction between triglyceride
and alcohol in the presence of a catalyst to produce biodiesel Overall, the three fatty acids bound to the glycerol bond of
and glycerol. Transesterification process can be classified as triglyceride are combined to CH3-group of methanol, yielding three
homogenous and heterogeneous. Marchetti et al. [4] investigated fatty acid methyl esters. The alcohol used in Transesterification is
the possible methods for biodiesel production. The catalysts a short type such as methanol, ethanol, propranolol and butanol.
used in the process can also be classified as homogeneous and However, methanol is the favorite choice because of its low cost,
heterogeneous. In both groups of catalyst there are several kinds; physical and chemical advantages (polar and shortest chain
alkali catalyst, acid catalyst, lipases (biocatalyst). You et al. [5] alcohol). For the stoichiometry of Transesterification, the ratio of
conducted a research into the biodiesel production using an alcohol to oil is 3:1 but an excess of alcohol is usually used in order
alkali catalyst and discovered it is quite common due to its low to shift the reaction for more production of biodiesel.
temperature and pressure operation. Production of biodiesel using

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Int Rob Auto J 2017, 2(6): 00036

Copyright:
Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor ©2017 Olufemi et al. 2/6

understanding of the complex reaction kinetic mechanism. The

stoichiometry of vegetable oil methanol sis reaction requires
Catalyst
Triglyceride (TG ) + ROH ← → Diglyceride ( DG ) + RCOOR
1
three moles of methanol (A) and one mole of triglyceride (TG)
Catalyst (1) to give three moles of fatty acid methyl ester (E) and one mole
Diglyceride ( DG ) + ROH ← → Monoglyceride ( MG ) + RCOOR2 of glycerol (glycerin) (GL).The overall reaction scheme for this
Catalyst reaction is:
Monoglyceride ( MG ) + ROH ← → Glycerol (GL ) + RCOOR
3

TG + 3A → 3E + GL (3)
The chemical reaction with methanol is shown schematically Accordingly, the model predictive controller is designed to
in Figure 1. handle a 2×2 system of inputs and outputs as shown in Figure 1.
The controlled output variables include biodiesel concentration
(CE) and reactor temperature (T); the manipulated variables
include reactant flow rate (Fo) and coolant flow rate (Fc). It is
FTG
CTG very important for a reactor to handle the disturbances in the feed
concentration and initial temperatures, as these disturbances
Control Valve 1

FCA

heavily change the system performance. The reactions in the

CA

TG + 3A 3E + GL

reactor during biodiesel production may be modelled as a

scheme of multiple reactions of the consecutive‐competitive/
PID

Fc Tc

PID
Fc Tc0 Control Valve 2

T (t) series‐parallel type. The forward reactions are said to be second

order, referring to the overall order of the proposed forward
TT I/P

TT

Transfer Line
F CE reaction step. When the molar ratio of alcohol to triglyceride is
CSTR Pump

CT
very high, the concentration of alcohol can be assumed constant.
The rate of reaction, then, depends solely on the concentration of
triglyceride, a condition which Freedman et al. [7], referred to as
I/P

Figure 1: Control diagram for two inputs - two outputs. pseudo-homogeneous first order kinetics. Finally, where the data
does not fit the sequential model, Freedman et al. [7], proposed
a “shunt reaction” in which three alcohols simultaneously attack
O

O
 the triglyceride. The shunt reaction is said to be of fourth order,
CH 2  O  C  R1 R1  C  OR ' CH 2  OH
 
presumably proportional to [TG] [ROH]3 [8]. The catalytic effect
O

Catalyst
O

is also captured here. The stepwise reactions are modelled as
CH  O  C  R2 → R2  C  OR ' + CH  OH
+ 3R ' OH ←
 
follows;
O O
 
CH 2  O  C  R3 R3  C  OR ' CH 2  OH k1
Triglycerides Alcohol Esters Glycerol
→
TG + ROH ← DG + E
k2
(2) (4)
k3
→
DG + ROH ← MG + E
The Parameters which greatly influences the k4
Transesterification reaction include: temperature, methanol: oil k5
→
MG + ROH ← GL + E
molar ratio, mixing rate, catalyst type and amount of catalyst. k6
Catalysts and feedstock are closely related to each other and affect
the economic profitability of biodiesel production. Therefore,
intensive research is dedicated to finding pertinent feedstock and Where E – (FAME) and GL – Glycerol.
establishing optimum reaction conditions. Biodiesel can be used The first-order kinetic model can be explained through the
directly in diesel engines but is commonly mixed with petroleum- following set of differential:
based diesel.
dCTG
Materials and Methods = −k C C + k C C
dt 1 TG A 2 DG E

This section presents the development of a mathematical dCDG

=k1CTG C A − k2CDG CE − k3CDG C A + k4CMG CE ,
model algorithm to generate the controller behaviour. The dt
simulation, which is done using ASPEN-Plus® Version 20.0 and dCMG
=k3CMG C A − k4CMG CE − k5CMG C A + k6CGLCE ,
the model predictive toolbox in MATLAB/SIMULINK motivated by dt
the prediction and control of future inputs and outputs based on dCE (5)
=k1CTG C A − k2CDG CE + k3CDG C A − k4CMG CE + k5CMG C A − k6CGLCE ,
the present data/model and comparing with that of conventional dt
PIDs as used by Mjalli et al. [6]. dCGL
= k5CMG C A − k6CGLCE ,
dt
Development of the mathematical models
dC A dC
The modeling of trans-esterification reactors starts with the = − E
dt dt

Citation: Olufemi AS, Ogbeide SE (2017) Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00036.
DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036
Copyright:
Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor ©2017 Olufemi et al. 3/6

Where CTG ,CDG ,CMG ,CE ,C A , CGL are the concentrations β γ 1.095 0.405
=U α=
F N 735.5 F N (9)
of triglyceride, diglycerides, monoglycerides, methyl ester, c c

methanol, and glycerol respectively k1 ,k3 , and k5 are the effective

On linearization of Equations (5) and (6), we have:
rate constants foe the forward reactions, and k2 ,k4 , and k6 are
the effective rate constants for the reverse reactions. It is assumed For material balance,
that the initial concentration of triglycerides is CTG0 and that of
diglycerides, monoglycerides, and glycerol is zero at time zero. V
dC A
= FC Ain - FC A - Vks C 2 - V
E
ks C 2 (T -Ts ) - 2Vks C As (C A -C As ) (10)
This is an example of three‐step reaction where the final GL, dt As
RT 2s
As

glycerol and E (FAME) are desired.

The energy balance must account for the reaction and heat
Governing Equation of Cst-Reactor Design
transfer
A second-order decomposition reaction occurs in the
continuous stirred tank reactor, the reactor is equipped with
ℑ( F , T , T , C , F ) =
a heat transfer surface that contains a condensing fluid, so that in A c
(11)
it remains at uniform temperature. The outlet composition dT -
E
2
and temperature may vary as a result of disturbances = in inlet V ρ C P dt F ρ C (T - T ) - F ρ C (T - T ) - ∆H Vk e RT C - UA(T - T )
P in ref P ref r o A c

temperature, inlet composition, and coolant temperature.

Material and energy balances, plus supplementary equations, are Process Modeling and Simulation
the basis of the model of the reactor system and a mechanistic
approach proposed by Mjalli et al. [6] is used. The equations In the process vegetable oil was Trans-esterifies in the
are nonlinear, so that numerical solution is necessary to predict reactor, followed by downstream purification, which consisted
how the reactor will behave from arbitrary initial conditions. of: methanol recovery by distillation; glycerol separation; and
However, because we desire to operate the reactor at steady state, methyl-ester purification by distillation. The final purity of the
it may be sufficient to examine the dynamics in the vicinity of a methyl-ester product was quantified by reporting the product
steady state; hence linear approximations are useful. In order stream composition, which was determined by thermodynamic
to realize the optimization and control of continuous biodiesel calculations in ASPEN. Mono-and di-glycosides were neglected
production process, the model used in this work are based on as reaction intermediates. Plant capacity, unit block operating
the second-order kinetic model joining the material and energy conditions, and chemical components (except the catalyst) were
balance equations as well as the dynamic equation of the coolant selected based on the previous heterogeneous acid catalyst
temperature, thus giving us the equations. (Styrene divinely benzene copolymer) simulation [9]. For the
present simulation styrene divinely benzene copolymer was
The material balance of the reactor for each component chosen as the catalyst, as it has been shown to effectively catalyze
reactant is expressed as: both the trans-esterification and esterification reactions by
several authors [10,11]. Although the properties for triolein were
dCi n available in the ASPEN data banks, different values of the boiling
V = Fi 0Ci 0 - FiCi - ∑ rjV (6) point and critical temperature were obtained from the literature
dt j =1 and used to Re-estimate the Antoine’s vapor pressure coefficients
since initial estimates and the results were unsatisfactory. The
The reactor energy balanced is expressed as: NRTL model was selected as the thermodynamic model. Since
no kinetic data were available for the styrene divinely benzene
ni dT copolymer reaction, the reactor was modeled as a stoichiometry
V= ∑ CiC p
i dt ( F C C + F C C ) (T - T ) reactor representing a packed bed reactor, eliminating the
TG 0 TG 0 PTG A 0 A 0 PA 0
i =1 catalyst removal step. The conversion was set at 90%. It was
(7)
n assumed that no side reactions involving glycerol occurred, since
- (V ∑ rj ∆H j ) - (UA ∆T ) there had been no reports of such reactions in the literature.
H
i= j ASPEN-Plus flow sheet of the process is presented in Figure 2;
conditions and reactor specifications are outlined in Table 1.
The coolant fluid energy balance is expressed as: Catalyst characteristics such as density and porosity have not
been included in the reaction scheme since they have not been
reported in the literature and are likely to change with each
dTC FC0 UAH ∆T
= (TCin -TC ) + (8) method of synthesis. Additionally, since the reactor is modeled
dt VC ρCVC CPC as a batch reactor, including such parameters would not have
affected the results. The operating values and calculated data
The function equation of heat transfer coefficient is of each component are obtained from literatures [12-15]. The
approximately expressed as: reaction rate constant, k, is taken from [16]. Cooling water flow

Citation: Olufemi AS, Ogbeide SE (2017) Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00036.
DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036
Copyright:
Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor ©2017 Olufemi et al. 4/6

rate, Fc, overall heat transfer coefficient times transfer area, UA, Heat of reaction ΔHr 6000 kjmol-1
products and reactants values are obtained from [6]. Model of the
reactor is written in MATLAB-MPC by using Equations 5-10. Results and Discussions
Model identification
Figures 3-7 show that the biodiesel process is a two-input
two-output multivariable process. The process nonlinear model
was programmed and simulated in Mat lab. Simulation results
shows system as an open stable process achieved the parameters
of the controller by incrementally adjusting the parameters until
the error was reduced to zero.

Controller design and simulations

The controller did not attempt to regulate the measured
reactor temperature directly. However it varies since it needed
to regulate the concentration. Thus, its MPC weight is zero.
Each of these parameters was chosen carefully to attain the best
Figure 2: ASPEN-Plus process flow diagram of the biodiesel production. controller performance and the least controller moves. Plant
inputs CAi and Ti are unmeasured disturbances as shown in Figure
4-6. By default, the controller assumes integrated white noise
Table 1: The Operating conditions and Specifications of Reactor Parameter. with unit magnitude at these inputs when configuring the state
estimator and increasing the state estimator signal-to-noise by a
Parameter Symbol Value Unit factor of 10 to improve disturbance rejection performance. The
Reactor Temperature T 60 C
0 MPC Controller block was configured to look ahead the set-point
changes in the future, i.e., anticipating the set-point transition
Reactor Pressure P 1 atm
which improves set-point tracking as shown in Figure 9. Testing
Reactant Flow rate F0 0.119 m3/s the response to a 5% increase in feed concentration, the closed-
Coolant Flow rate Fc 0.00268 m3/s loop response is satisfactory to the desired set-point transition.
Catalyst Styrene-DVB 1 wt% After a 10 minute warm-up period, ramp the concentration
set point downward at a rate of 0.25 per minute until it reaches
Conversion x 90 %
2.0 kmol/m3. Removing the 5% increase in feed concentration
Initial Reactant Temp. T0 25 C
0
used previously gives an unacceptable closed-loop response.
Stirrer Rotational Speed N 10 Rps Performance along the full transition is improved when other
MPC controllers are designed at different operating conditions
Initial Conc. of TG CTG0 1.11 kmol/m3
along the intermediate and final transition stages respectively as
Initial Conc. of MeOH CA0 21.499 kmol/m3 shown in Figure 10.
Reynolds number Re 69176.45 - Biodiesel Transesterification reactor control has become a very
Reactor Volume V 27.08 m 3 important issue in recent times due to the difficulty in controlling
the complex and highly nonlinear dynamic behavior. Nonlinear
Agitator diameter Da 0.913 m
models have a lot of advantages over linear models for control and
Volume of cooling Jacket VJ 2.85 m3 estimation and at the same time, they also present new difficulties
Overall heat transfer Area AH 50.48 m2 that must be addressed to guarantee their usefulness. This study
demonstrates both the features and caveats of nonlinear models
Molar flow of TG FTG 1.31 kmol/h in MPC and presents simple and effective methods for analyzing
Molar flow of MeOH FA 3.24 kmol/h and avoiding these problems. The research shows the proposed
model of the control scheme for the continuous biodiesel
Heat capacity of MeOH Cp (MeOH) 79.5 J/(mol K)
Transesterification reactor and also, the transformation of the
Heat capacity of model in time domain presents the results of the model which
Cp (TG) 463.36 J/(mol K)
Triglyceride shows that it achieved optimal output set-points according to the
Heat transfer coefficient U 438 W m-2K-1 optimal control scheme goal of the actual production process,
and the MPC realized the dynamic tracking control and it was
Cooling Water
Tcin 300 K observed that the choice of disturbance models is an important
Temperature
issue for nonlinear plants. The choice of disturbance model can
Density of Methanol ρ 0.998 Kg/m
determine whether a system can be stabilized. In general, the
m3.mol/ input disturbance model is appropriate for cases of plant/model
Kinetic constant k0 2.46 x 1010
sec mismatch, although it is ineffective for a specific class of systems.

Citation: Olufemi AS, Ogbeide SE (2017) Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00036.
DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036
Copyright:
Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor ©2017 Olufemi et al. 5/6

We further demonstrate poor performance of linear MPC on this class of system.

Figure 3-7: Output response curves under 𝐹𝑜 and 𝐹𝑐 actions.

Figure 8: The CSTR MPC controller design with a set-point.

Figure 9: A closed-loop response with a step disturbance in feed concentration.

Citation: Olufemi AS, Ogbeide SE (2017) Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00036.
DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036
Copyright:
Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor ©2017 Olufemi et al. 6/6

Figure 10: A closed-loop controller response using full transition.

Conclusion 6. Mjalli FS, San LK, Yin KC, Hussain MA(2009) Dynamics and control
of a biodiesel Transesterification reactor. Chemical Engineering and
The control system design of the biodiesel Transesterification Technology 32(1): 13-26.
reactor is different from plant to plant. This depends mainly
7. Freedman, Butterfield BRO, Pryde EH (1986) Transesterification
on the specific production technology adopted. For example, kinetics of soybean oil 1. Journal of the American Oil Chemists’
biodiesel production plants based on the MPOB (Malaysia Palm Oil Society 63(10): 1375-1380.
Board) technology have the Transesterification reactor operating
pressure higher than atmospheric pressure. For this project, the 8. Turner, TL (2005) Modeling and simulation of reaction kinetics for
biodiesel production. NCSU Libraries.
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at a certain level in order to keep methanol in the liquid phase 9. Chiu CW, MJ Goff, GJ Suppes (2005) Distribution of methanol and
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cooling jacket system is utilized to manipulate this controlled 10. Kucek KT, César-Oliveira, Wilhelm HM, Ramos LP (2007) Ethanolysis
variable to maintain the reactor temperature below 65°C (right of refined soybean oil assisted by sodium and potassium hydroxides.
below the boiling point of methanol at atmospheric pressure). Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society 84(4): 385-392.
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11. Pinto AC, Guarieiroa LLN, Rezendea MJC, Ribeiroa NM, Torresb EA, et
another controlled variable, rather than the temperature of the al. (2005) Biodiesel: an overview. Journal of the Brazilian Chemical
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Citation: Olufemi AS, Ogbeide SE (2017) Dynamics and Control System Design for Biodiesel Transesterification Reactor. Int Rob Auto J 2(6): 00036.
DOI: 10.15406/iratj.2017.02.00036

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