Reactive distillation in the intensification of oleic acid esterification with methanol – A simulation case-study

•Esterification of oleic acid with methanol is simulated as a case-study.•Different reactive distillation layouts were compared with the conventional process.•The reactant conversion is always higher than that of the conventional process.•A reactive distillation column with top recycle unit proved to be the best solution. Process intensification through reactive distillation (RD) could be successfully applied to the esterification of long-chain fatty acids, which is a crucial step in the biodiesel synthesis. While previous literature reports are mainly focused on the esterification of short- to medium- fatty acids, oleic acid has been chosen as an example of a long chain one and different RD configurations were simulated and compared. The configuration with top external recycle proved to be the best solution since it allows the reaction to be conducted under a large methanol excess, even though the column is fed with stoichiometric reactants.