Abstract

Biodiesel was produced by microwave-assistedtransesterification of soybean oil with methanol as esterifyingagent and sodium methoxide as catalyst. Fourier transforminfrared spectroscopy was employed as a fast and reliableanalytical technique for the quantification of fatty acid methylester content in the produced biodiesel. The quantification wasdone with the use of a partial least squares model developedbased on the infrared spectra obtained. It was shown thatmicrowave irradiation is capable of reducing the reaction timewhen compared to conventional mechanically stirred reactorsused for biodiesel production. In addition, quantification of fattyacid methyl ester content in biodiesel by Fourier transforminfrared spectroscopy coupled to multivariate statistics wasdemonstrated feasible.