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Abstract
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To diminish the consumption of fossil fuels and their subsequent pollutions, biodiesel plays an important role in
the transportation section. Biodiesel production processes can be coupled with renewable energy sources to
achieve higher energy efficiency and higher renewability. Also, employing a sub-system to produce power si-
multaneously increases the process performance as well. In the present study, a new integrated cogeneration
process for the production of biodiesel and power using solar energy is proposed and analyzed. Methanol, fresh
oil, and sodium hydroxide, at 25 °C and 100 kPa, enter into the biodiesel production unit as feed. Yazd city in
Iran, located between 31.88 N and 54.28 E, is considered as base region for simulating the parabolic trough solar
collector. To design a cogeneration plant, the organic Rankine cycle is combined with the solar system to supply
the required process power. The proposed system produces 991.42 kg/h of biodiesel with a yield of 94.42% and
1718 kW net power simultaneously. The total energy efficiency is 60.83%, showing the capability of the pro-
posed process for biodiesel and power cogeneration from renewability and environmental perspective. Also, the
exergy analysis applied to evaluate the proposed plant’s thermodynamic performance. The total exergy effi-
ciency of the system is 74.38% when the highest exergy destruction rate takes place inside the parabolic trough
solar collectors.
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