Multi‐Step Controlled Kinetics of the Transesterification of Crude Soybean Oil with Methanol by Mg(OCH3)2

This work focuses on a kinetic model that can be expressed as three significant controlled regions, i.e., a mass transfer controlled region in the internal surface of a heterogeneous catalyst, an irreversible chemical reaction controlled region in the pseudo‐homogenous fluid body and a reversible equilibrium chemical reaction controlled region near to the transesterification equilibrium stage. With the help of MATLAB7.0 software, the apparent reaction rate constants, k₂, k₂⁺ and k₂^–, were calculated and the corresponding apparent activation energies were calculated to be 67.450, 60.680 and 58.279 kJ·mol^–1, respectively. According to the confirmation experiments, it is indicated that the results can be applied for predicting the FAME yield at other reaction temperatures.