engleski

Miniaturized system for biodiesel production and purification

Biodiesel, as a fuel alternative to diesel, is produced from renewable biological sources and is considered a renewable energy source. The most common method of biodiesel production is the transesterification process. The biodiesel produced by this process is not pure and contains traces of alcohol, soap, catalysts, water, metals, oil, and glycerides, which should be removed before using biodiesel. There are many different technologies that can be used to purify biodiesel, including wet washing (water, acidified water or organic solvents), dry washing (adsorption or ion- exchange), distillation (including reactive distillation), and membrane separation. The most commonly used process in the industry is wet washing, which requires large amounts of water and is not economically and environmentally justified. For this reason, the other mentioned technologies are intensively studied. In this work, biodiesel was produced in a microreactor by a transesterification process catalysed by lipase and purified by membrane ultrafiltration with a polyethersulfone membrane in continuously connected systems. A total of four different systems were developed and compared. A biodiesel yield of 90.7% and a glycerol mass fraction in the purified biodiesel of 0.025% were achieved during a residence time of 20 minutes in a system with two microreactor inlets.

biodiesel ; membrane ultrafiltration ; microreactors ; integrated systems

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