Biodiesel Transesterification: Catalyst Kinetics & Glycerol Separation

This simulator renders a batch of vegetable-oil triglyceride molecules reacting with methanol under a base catalyst, exactly as an industrial biodiesel reactor does. Each particle steps through the real three-stage transesterification pathway — triglyceride to diglyceride to monoglyceride to glycerol — releasing one methyl-ester (FAME, biodiesel) molecule at every step. Catalyst loading and reaction temperature set the step rate through the Arrhenius equation, while the methanol-to-oil molar ratio sets how far the reversible reaction can push toward completion before stalling at equilibrium. As FAME and glycerol accumulate, they separate into two visible layers by density — light biodiesel floating on top, dense glycerol settling below — mirroring the gravity-settling step used to purify real biodiesel after the reaction finishes.