_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: E-mail: ypasae@ukipaulus.ac.id; International Research Journal of Pure & Applied Chemistry 21(20): 20-25, 2020; Article no.IRJPAC.62384 ISSN: 2231-3443, NLM ID: 101647669 Contribution of the Reactive Separation Process to Methanol Recovery and Biodiesel Characteristics Yoel Pasae 1* , Eda Lolo Allo 2 and Lyse Bulo 1 1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Kristen Indonesia Paulus, Indonesia. 2 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Match and Science, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration among all authors. Author YP designs studies, analyzes data, wrote the protocol, wrote the first draft of the manuscript and completes final manuscripts. Author LB conducted data collection in the laboratory. Author ELA analyzed physical and chemical properties. All authors have agreed the final manuscript. Article Information DOI: 10.9734/IRJPAC/2020/v21i2030280 Editor(s): (1) Dr. Richard Sawadogo, Research Institute for Health Sciences Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Reviewers: (1) A. Avinash, GMR Institute of Technology, India. (2) Mohamed El Sayed El Tokhy, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Egypt. Complete Peer review History: http://www.sdiarticle4.com/review-history/62384 Received 24 August 2020 Accepted 29 October 2020 Published 12 November 2020 ABSTRACT The chemical reaction that occurs in the biodiesel processing is a type of reversible reaction between oil and methanol. Therefore, to increase the conversion of the reaction, the amount of methanol used is more than the stoichiometric equilibrium. The excess methanol is often difficult to recover after washing biodiesel. Determine of the contribution of the reactive separation process to methanol recovery and biodiesel characteristics are the focus of this study. The transesterification reaction process is carried out in reactive separation equipment, using palm oil as raw material, NaOH, and super base CaO as the catalyst. The results showed that the reactive separation process could recover methanol as much as 55.88% for the reaction process using a NaOH catalyst, and 52.94% for the reaction process using a super base CaO catalyst. The biodiesel characteristics produced to meet the criteria set out in the Indonesian National Standard. Keywords: Biodiesel; reactive separation; methanol recovery; palm oil; transesterification. Original Research Article