Biodiesel, with the reaction staged the way it really is
Two-stage base-catalysed transesterification of a vegetable oil, the excess methanol flashed off for recovery and the esters washed free of glycerol.
The actual dark-mode canvas: oil, methanol and catalyst reacted in two stages, the excess methanol flashed off for recovery, and the esters washed free of glycerol.
Why the reaction is staged
Transesterification is reversible, so a single reactor stalls short of spec; conversion is driven by excess methanol and a second stage, and the excess is then flashed back out for recycle. Both stages and the recovery are solved here rather than lumped into one assumed yield.
Unit ops shipped for this vertical
A specified per-pass conversion on a key component — the shortcut counterpart to the equilibrium and kinetic reactors.
Single-stage vapor-liquid equilibrium split at a fixed temperature/pressure.
Flash/phase-split unit op — the foundational vapor-liquid calculation.
Stream reactor conversion, methanol-flash temperature and wash-column interface from the plant's OPC-UA server into this flowsheet's twin comparison — a falling second-stage conversion is visible against the solved balance before the ester content fails spec.
See the Digital Twin platform →Try it yourself
- ✓Two reactor stages — how a reversible reaction is actually driven
- ✓Excess methanol recovered, not written off
- ✓Oil modelled as a real 70/30 triolein/tripalmitin blend