Multivariate Control and Override of a Two-Step Homogeneous Base-Catalyzed Transesterification Process

Author(s):  
Horacio Pinzón Coronado ◽  
Andrea Escobar Porto ◽  
Marco E. Sanjuan

The most common technology used in biodiesel production is the transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats. Transesterification (also called alcoholysis) is the reaction of fat oil with an alcohol to form esters and glycerol, in presence of catalyst to improve the reaction rate and yield. Although process industry has established long ago that continuous processes are more cost-effective than batch processing, there is still a substantial number of batch processing biodiesel plants in the world. One of the challenges in switching to a continuous process is the simultaneous control requirement of throughput (flow), temperature, and biodiesel concentration. In the present work, a two-step homogeneous base-catalyzed transesterification process for a continuous biodiesel production plant is studied. The most relevant variables are: reaction temperature, ratio of alcohol to vegetable oil, amount of catalyst, mixing intensity (RPM), catalyst and vegetable oil used. The objective was to design a control strategy incorporating three key loops, overrides, and decoupling based on multivariate control analysis. The designed control strategy is described and simulation-based performance test results are shown.

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-139
Author(s):  
Waleed S. Mohammed ◽  
Ahmed H. El-Shazly ◽  
Marwa F. Elkady ◽  
Masahiro Ohshima

Introduction: The utilization of biodiesel as an alternative fuel is turning out to be progressively famous these days because of worldwide energy deficiency. The enthusiasm for utilizing Jatropha as a non-edible oil feedstock is quickly developing. The performance of the base catalyzed methanolysis reaction could be improved by a continuous process through a microreactor in view of the high mass transfer coefficient of this technique. Materials & Methods: Nanozirconium tungstovanadate, which was synthetized using sol-gel preparation method, was utilized in a complementary step for biodiesel production process. The prepared material has an average diameter of 0.066 &µm. Results: First, the NaOH catalyzed methanolysis of Jatropha oil was investigated in a continuous microreactor, and the efficient mixing over different mixers and its impact on the biodiesel yield were studied under varied conditions. Second, the effect of adding the nanocatalyst as a second stage was investigated. Conclusion: The maximum percentage of produced methyl esters from Jatropha oil was 98.1% using a methanol/Jatropha oil molar ratio of 11 within 94 s using 1% NaOH at 60 &°C. The same maximum conversion ratio was recorded with the nanocatalyst via only 0.3% NaOH.


Catalysts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Awais ◽  
Sa’ed A Musmar ◽  
Faryal Kabir ◽  
Iram Batool ◽  
Muhammad Asif Rasheed ◽  
...  

Biodiesel is a renewable fuel usually produced from vegetable oils and animal fats. This study investigates the extraction of oil and its conversion into biodiesel by base-catalyzed transesterification. Firstly, the effect of various solvents (methanol, n-hexane, chloroform, di-ethyl ether) on extraction of oil from non-edible crops, such as R. communis and M. azedarach, were examined. It was observed that a higher concentration of oil was obtained from R. communis (43.6%) as compared to M. azedarach (35.6%) by using methanol and n-hexane, respectively. The extracted oils were subjected to NaOH (1%) catalyzed transesterification by analyzing the effect of oil/methanol molar ratio (1:4, 1:6, 1:8 and 1:10) and varying temperature (20, 40, 60 and 80 °C) for 2.5 h of reaction time. M. azedarach yielded 88% and R. communis yielded 93% biodiesel in 1:6 and 1:8 molar concentrations at ambient temperature whereas, 60 °C was selected as an optimum temperature, giving 90% (M. azedarach) and 94% (R. communis) biodiesel. The extracted oil and biodiesel were characterized for various parameters and most of the properties fulfilled the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard biodiesel. The further characterization of fatty acids was done by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS) and oleic acid was found to be dominant in M. azedarach (61.5%) and R. communis contained ricinoleic acid (75.53%). Furthermore, the functional groups were analyzed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The results suggested that both of the oils are easily available and can be used for commercial biodiesel production at a cost-effective scale.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 02010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sari Dafinah Ramadhani ◽  
Saphira Nurina Fakhri ◽  
Setijo Bismo

The disadvantages of conventional biodiesel synthesis trigger the birth of new biodiesel synthesis methods using the DBD plasma reactor. The conventional methods with homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts have significant constraints that the formation of glycerol compounds in large enough quantities that require considerable energy. The aim of present experiment is to design DBD non-thermal plasma reactor coaxial pipe type and to do its performance test in converting biodiesel The feed stock used are palm oil, ethanol, and argon gas as plasma carrier. Such a chemical reactor, this plasma reactor is also influenced by reaction kinetics and hydrodynamic factors. From this research, it can be seen that the optimum feed and gas flowrate being operated is 1.64 and 41.67 mL/s. The plasma reactor is used in the form of a quartz glass tube surrounded by a SS-314 spiral coil as an outer electrode. The applied operating conditions are 1 : 1 molar ratio of methanol/oil, ambient temperature of 28 - 30 °C, and pressure 1 bar. From this performance test, it is found that this plasma reactor can be used to synthesize biodiesel from palm oil and methanol without catalyst, no formation of soap, and minimal byproducts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-542
Author(s):  
C.A. Odega ◽  
G.T. Anguruwa ◽  
C.O. Fakorede

Biodiesel is a fuel produced from renewable resources; it is a clean alternative fuel, which has drawn the attention of energy researchers for the last two decades due to the disturbing effect of climate change caused by diesel fuel. This paper focuses on showcasing the qualities of biodiesel produced from used vegetable oil and the positive impact on the alarming change in climate today. This paper presents an experimental investigation on production of biodiesel from used vegetable oil (UVO) gotten from a road side bean cake (akara) seller. The oil that was intended to be thrown out was de-odoured and filtered to remove impurities. The filtered oil was then used for biodiesel production and characterized with physical and fuel properties such as density, viscosity, cloud point, refractive index, specific gravity, ash content, moisture content, flash point and cloud point. The results obtained were afterwards compared to ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and EN (Europe’s) international standards. Two biodiesels samples were produced at different temperatures but the same timings. The biodiesel were produced at 700C at 40mins (biodiesel A) and 1000C at 40mins (biodiesel B) with values of specific gravity (0.98 kg/m3; 0.90 kg/m3), density (936kg/m3; 882kg/m3), kinematic viscosity (1.5mm/s2; 5.5 mm/s2), cloud point (150C; 20C), flash point (2600C min; 2000C min), moisture content (0.07%; 0.04%), refractive index (1.4609; 1.4398) and ash point (0.24%; 0.01%) respectively. On comparison, biodiesel A couldn’t match up to the international standards while biodiesel matched up to the standards given.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chernet Tuge Deressa ◽  
Gemechis File Duressa

AbstractWe consider a SEAIR epidemic model with Atangana–Baleanu fractional-order derivative. We approximate the solution of the model using the numerical scheme developed by Toufic and Atangana. The numerical simulation corresponding to several fractional orders shows that, as the fractional order reduces from 1, the spread of the endemic grows slower. Optimal control analysis and simulation show that the control strategy designed is operative in reducing the number of cases in different compartments. Moreover, simulating the optimal profile revealed that reducing the fractional-order from 1 leads to the need for quick starting of the application of the designed control strategy at the maximum possible level and maintaining it for the majority of the period of the pandemic.


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