Design and Production of A Portable Biodiesel Plant

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Design and Production of A Portable Biodiesel
Plant
Presenters Norman Chow Conrad
Poon Members Andreas Christensen Amanda
Drew Linda Ishkintana Jerry Lu Ayrien
Setiaputra Crissa Villamayor Tony Yau
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Overview

• Definition of problem
• Biodiesel and its advantages
• The Reaction
• The Pre-treatment
• The Purification
• Mass Balance
• Future Objectives

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Definition of Problem

• To design production process
• To design a mobile biodiesel plant capable of
• Processing different grades of waste vegetable
  oil (WVO)
• Producing bio-diesel at various locations
• Producing 3000 L per week of biodiesel
• To optimize unit operations and automate process

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One mans trash is another mans treasure.
Production Process
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What is Biodiesel?

• An alternative fuel
• Biodiesel monoalkyl esters of long chain fatty
  acids derived from a renewable lipid feedstock
• - American Society for Testing and Materials
• bio represents the renewable and biological
  source in contrast to petroleum-based diesel fuel
• diesel refers to its use in diesel engines

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Biodiesel Advantages

• Environmentally friendly
• Reduce vehicle emissions
• Can directly replace diesel fuel or blend with
  diesel

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Biodiesel Advantages

• Good lubrication properties to reduce wear and
  tear in engine and fuel system
• By-product is glycerol
• Reduce dependency on foreign oil markets

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Cost Effectiveness

• Exchange rate 1 US 1.26 CAD
• Biodiesel will be sold at the current diesel
  selling price

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Biodiesel PFD
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Reaction

• The reaction stage is the heart of the process
• Many, many options are available
• Choice of reaction and unit operations were based
  on

1. Quality of bio-diesel
2. Rate and yield of reaction
3. Reactor and reactant volume
4. Simple low cost design
5. Easy Maintenance
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Susiebe choosie
1. Choice of reaction
2. Choice of reactor
3. Choice of reactor configuration
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Choice of Reaction
1. Pyrolysis

• Heating in absence of O2 to break chemical bonds
  to yield small molecules

• Expensive equipment

• Uncontrollable reactions and multiple products

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Choice of Reaction
2. Enzyme

• Lipase (biological enzyme) used as catalyst
• 41 methanol, little downstream processing
• 60 h for 80 conversion, lipase is expensive

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Choice of Reaction
3. Acid Esterification

• Sulphuric Acid used as catalyst

• 30 methanol 1 TAG

• 69 hours to obtain 90 conversion

• No FFA treatment required

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Reaction Choices
4. Alkali / Base Transesterification

• NaOH or KOH used as a catalyst

• 6 methanol 1 TAG

• 1 hour for 95 conversion of TAGs

• More pretreatment steps since water and FFAs
  produce soap

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Recap of Transesterification
Biodiesel
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Reactor Choices
1. Plug-flow

• Complex design/automation
• Probably high cost
• Difficult to clean/maintain
• Less volume/continuous

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Reactor Choices
2. CSTR

• Simple design
• Low cost
• Easy maintenance
• Thoroughly researched
• More volume/batch process

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Choice of Reactor Configuration

• In progress.

• Multiple reactors needed to speed production

• Should be in parallel configuration to imitate
  continuous process

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Current Reaction PFD
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Pre-Treating WVO

• WVO may contain up to 25 FFA
• Must lower FFA to lt0.5 of WVO
• Remove FFA by adding methanol and sulfuric acid
  to WVO

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Pre-Treating WVO

• Water is produced from the FFA removal reaction
• Water and methanol removed from WVO by
  distillation

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Pre-Treatment PFD
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Post-Treatment (Biodiesel Purification)

• By-product from reactor contains methanol and
  glycerol
• Methanol removed by separator
• Glycerol removed by separator

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Post-Treatment (Biodiesel Purification)

• Biodiesel must be neutralized by sulfuric acid
  and water
• Water, salt soap is removed by gravity settling

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Post-Treatment PFD
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Pre/Post-Treatment Options

• Drum
• Operates by gravity settling
• Advantages
• Low Cost
• Easy to maintain
• Disadvantages
• Must be manually cleaned at regular intervals
• Larger surface area is needed for better settling
  time

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Pre/Post-Treatment Options

• Vertical Gravity Separators
• Operates by gravity
• Advantages
• Inexpensive to operate
• Portable
• Varies temperature and pressure to increase
  settling time
• Disadvantages
• Size

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Pre/Post-Treatment Options

• Hydrocyclone
• Operates by separating the light and heavy
  components
• Advantages
• No moving parts
• Simple maintenance
• Disadvantages
• Requires a pump to perform separation

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Mass Balances - Product
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Mass Balances - Reactants
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Simplified Mass Balance

• 147 WVO
• - 128 TAG
• - 6.4 water
• - 12.8 FFA

All numbers in kg/batch
28 Methanol 0.37 NaOH
135 water 0.1 Sulfuric Acid
28 Methanol 0.14 Sulfuric Acid
135 BioD 13 glycerol 15 MeOH 0.2 base Trace soap
Pretreatment FFA MeOH ? H2O BioD
128 TAG 13 BioD
Reaction TAGmeth ?BioD
Post-treatment Baseacid ?salt
15 Methanol 135 water Trace soap/salt
26 Methanol 7 Water
135 Biodiesel 13 Glycerol
135 kg BioD / 0.9 kg/L 150 L Biodiesel
All numbers in kg/batch
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To Summarize

• Create a mobile biodiesel plant
• Transesterification
• Pre-treatment of FFA in WVO
• Post-treatment of raw biodiesel
• 150 L/batch (135 kg/batch) of biodiesel produced

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In Progress

• Reactor number configuration
• Volume sizes for all unit ops
• FFA pretreatment options
• The type of unit op to be used
• Contact suppliers
• Dealing with glycerol and waste water
• Research uses for glycerol and research citys
  waste regulations
• Timing Issues

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Acknowledgements

• Norman Woo
• Dr. Naoko Ellis
• UBC Department of Chemical
• and Biological Engineering
• Environmental Youth Alliance

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Questions???

• Thank You