Abstract

By employing the system approach methodology, this research showed the expansion of Powell’s algorithm to solve the identification of kinetic parameters in the differential equation system which describes the transesterification of fish fat into biodiesel fuel. The expanded Powell’s method is developed on the basis of the algorithm that combines Taxi-Cab method with random search method and gradient method (steepest descent method). The obtained results allow us to simulate and optimize the biodiesel fuel production in order to assess the influence of technological factors on the effect of process and to determine the optimal operation conditions. The expanded Powell’s algorithm can also be advantageously applied to simulation or optimizzation in the cases when the mathematical model of the research object contains several parameters which must be identified.