Optimization of alkali catalyst for transesterification of jatropha curcus using adaptive neuro-fuzzy modeling

摘要

Transesterification of Jatropha curcus for biodiesel production is a kinetic control process, which is complex in nature and controlled by temperature, the molar ratio, mixing intensity and catalyst process parameters. A precise choice of catalyst is required to improve the rate of transesterification and to simulate the kinetic study in a batch reactor. The present paper uses an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) approach to model and simulate the butyl ester production using alkaline catalyst (NaOH). The amounts of catalyst and time for reaction have been used as the model’s input parameters. The model is a combination of fuzzy inference and artificial neural network, including a set of fuzzy rules which have been developed directly from experimental data. The proposed modeling approach has been verified by comparing the expected results with the practical results which were observed and obtained through a batch reactor operation. The application of the ANFIS test shows which amount of catalyst predicted by the proposed model is suitable and in compliance with the experimental values at 0.5% level of significance.