19-08-2014, 10:37 AM
Biodiesel is one of the best possible alternatives to fossil fuels. Compared to petroleum-based diesel, biodiesel has a more favorable combustion emission profile. But the high cost of biodiesel is the major obstacle for its commercialization. The use of waste frying oil, instead of virgin oil, to produce biodiesel is an effective way to reduce the raw material cost. Another approach which leads to the reduction in the operating cost is the improvement in the technology, because apart from the transesterification reaction the actual process of biodiesel production includes many sub process steps such as product separation and purification. The aim of this study is to find a more efficient alternative technology for biodiesel production with the help of hydrodynamic cavitation.
Biodiesel is one of the best possible alternatives to fossil fuels. Compared to petroleum-based diesel, biodiesel has a more favorable combustion emission profile. But the high cost of biodiesel is the major obstacle for its commercialization. The use of waste frying oil, instead of virgin oil, to produce biodiesel is an effective way to reduce the raw material cost. Another approach which leads to the reduction in the operating cost is the improvement in the technology, because apart from the transesterification reaction the actual process of biodiesel production includes many sub process steps such as product separation and purification. The aim of this study is to find a more efficient alternative technology for biodiesel production with the help of hydrodynamic cavitation.
The work has been carried out to see the effects of hydrodynamic cavitation on catalyst amount and solar ratio of methanol to oil (intended to minimize) desired for transesterification of waste frying oil.
Since, the unreacted methanol in reaction mixture affects the separation of ester and glycerol phase, the time required for the separation step has been observed at different molar ratio of methanol to oil.
The washing step is desired to have a good quality biodiesel fuel, but it takes a substantial time to separate the clean ester phase from the water containing soap and trace amount of KOH. This time can be minimized by carrying out the washing at higher temperature. Therefore the effect of temperature on phase separation time during washing step has been also studied. The material balance for the process has been established and the yield, purity, recovery of fatty acid methyl esters as well as the by product (glycerol) has been quantified and reported.