Resumen
This work reports the production of fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEE) from the transesterification of soybean oil in supercritical ethanol in a continuous catalyst-free process using different reactor configurations. Experiments were performed in a tubular reactor in one-step reaction and experimentally simulating two reactors, one operated in series and the other a recycle reactor. The reaction products were analyzed for their content of residual triglycerides, glycerol, monoglycerides, diglycerides, ethyl esters and decomposition. Results show that the configurations studied with intermediate separation of glycerol afford higher conversions of vegetable oil to their fatty acid ethyl esters derivatives when compared to the one-step reaction, with relatively low decomposition of fatty acids (< 5.0 wt%).