Abstract: A process flowsheet was developed in ChemCad 6.4
to study the effect of feed moisture contents on the pre-esterification
of waste oils. Waste oils were modelled as a mixture of triolein
(90%), oleic acid (5%) and water (5%). The process mainly consisted
of feed drying, pre-esterification reaction and methanol recovery. The
results showed that the process energy requirements would be
minimized when higher degrees of feed drying and higher preesterification
reaction temperatures are used.